Sunday morning football doesn’t do the same numbers as Sunday afternoon or evening football (or Monday night or Thursday), but it does better than anything else on television at that time of day.
The Week 7 matchup between the Steelers and Saints attracted an average of 7.7 million viewersaccording to ESPN.
The fourth straight Sunday morning game drew the third-largest audience for any international game on NFL Network.
The four European matches played in October (three in London, one in France) attracted an average of 7.1 million viewers on NFLN.
The only problem with morning football (which will proliferate if/when the NFL gains the ability to host 16 international games per year) is that it makes Sunday morning pregame shows irrelevant. As more games are played at 9:30 a.m. ET, networks might reconsider whether they even want to air pregame shows.
That said, networks televising Sunday afternoon games need a studio presence for updates and halftimes. But pregame shows from noon ET to 1 p.m. ET will draw smaller and smaller audiences as more games are played on Sunday mornings.
Gn sports
