Every local network affiliate in Buffalo has reason to cheer after the NFL announced its schedule last week even if one of them has reason to boo the loss of big Bills games.
For all the talk before the schedule was announced that CBS affiliates no longer were certain to get AFC road games and Fox would no longer be certain to get NFC road games, the schedule announced didn’t play out any differently for Buffalo stations than it has over the years.
As usual, WIVB-TV (Channel 4), the local CBS affiliate, is in line to carry the most Bills games with eight this season.
Channel 4 didn’t lose any 1 p.m. or 4:25 p.m. games it normally would have broadcast. However, it lost several games it might have received if they hadn’t gone to prime time because Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs and company have become such a big national TV draw.
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WUTV, the Fox affiliate, also didn’t lose any NFC afternoon games it normally would have received.
“It was just the way the final puzzle came together,” said Mike North, the NFL’s vice president of broadcast planning, in a conference call. “It wasn’t intentional.”
While Buffalo isn’t impacted by the new rule of each game being a free agent, Washington, normally a Fox network, has seven CBS games.
According to sources, the Bills games can generate around $150,000 in revenue for the local stations.
They add moneymaking pregame and postgame shows and additionally use the games to promote their news departments.
The Bills games are so lucrative because they are easily the highest-rated TV shows in Western New York.
The team’s games averaged a 45.8 rating here last season, averaging 290,212 households when not one regularly scheduled prime-time network entertainment program hit a double-digit live rating in February. And the games last more than three hours, while regularly scheduled entertainment programs last 30 minutes to an hour.
Even with all the Bills’ Sunday afternoon games airing on their usual local channels, you still might not be able to find the games each week without my scorecard because of all the prime-time contests on their schedule.
Now let’s take a station-by-station look at where the games will be broadcast:
WIVB: Its loss of some of the biggest matchups to prime time was WGRZ-TV (Channel 2) and WKBW-TV’s (Channel 7) gain. The losses include the season opener against the New York Jets and Josh Allen’s golf buddy, Aaron Rodgers, to “Monday Night Football” and prime-time games against AFC rivals Denver Broncos and Cincinnati Bengals. But Channel 4 should be pleased that CBS kept several other big games.
They include the Bills home opener against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sept. 17; the 4:25 p.m. games at Philadelphia on Nov. 26 and at the Kansas City Chiefs on Dec. 10; the 1 p.m. Oct. 1 home game with the Miami Dolphins and the 1 p.m. Dec. 31 game with the New England Patriots.
According to a CBS release, the Bills game against Philadelphia will be a national game and Bills games with the Jets on Nov. 19 and the Kansas City game on Dec. 10 are among other “highly anticipated games” in the 4:25 p.m. national window.
The Bills games with Miami on Oct. 1 and the New England game on Dec. 31 are among the network’s “headline” games at 1 p.m.
WUTV (Channel 29): The local Fox affiliate gets the huge 4:25 p.m. game on Dec. 17 with the Bills vs. the Dallas Cowboys but lost the Oct. 15 game with Brian Daboll’s New York Giants to NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” that it normally would have carried if it played on Sunday afternoon.
WGRZ: The local NBC affiliate gets two of the season’s highest profile games – the huge Bills-Giants prime-time game and a second “Sunday Night Football” game with Joe Burrow and the Bengals on Nov. 5. As the local NBC affiliate, it is practically guaranteed to be the local channel that will simulcast a third game against the Los Angeles Chargers on Dec. 23 that is carried nationally on NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock.
The cable and streaming games are carried on network affiliates in the markets of the participating teams. “I would certainly expect NBC, owning Peacock, chooses an NBC affiliate to air those games,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s chief operating offer, in the NFL conference call.
WKBW: The local ABC affiliate has the potential to carry four prime-time Bills games. It will carry the regular season opener on “Monday Night Football” against the Jets and Rodgers on Sept. 11 that is simulcast on ABC. The “MNF” game with Denver on Nov. 13 on ESPN isn’t scheduled to be simulcast on ABC but still likely will be on Channel 7. The station also is expected to get the rights to the “Thursday Night Football” game with Tampa Bay on Oct. 26 on Prime Video through a long-term deal that Channel 7’s owner, E.W. Scripps Company, made with Amazon.
It could also get the 9:30 a.m. Oct. 8 game against Jacksonville in London on the NFL Network, which isn’t assigned to a local channel yet. Channel 7 simulcast last year’s NFL Network game against New England, which may make it the bidding favorite to get this one, too.
The NFL also hasn’t announced what network will carry the regular season finale Jan. 6 or Jan. 7 at Miami or when it will be played.
In other interesting items from the NFL conference call with reporters about the schedule:
CBS has a minimum number of AFC games and Fox has a minimum number of NFC games to retain that identity for its partners.
Each network can protect one game each week from being flexed. North said that means the second- or third-best game of any week may become the choice to flex near the end of the season if a move out of the scheduled game is needed. The Bills-Kansas City game surely will be protected by CBS from being flexed.
Each team can have six scheduled prime-time games and a seventh game can be flexed to prime time.
Finally, North explained what the teams felt would be the worst thing that could be done to them schedule-wise. It wasn’t a three-game road trip, back-to-back Monday games on the road or playing a team after their bye.
“What they said was the worst thing we’d do to a team was to have them play the Kansas City Chiefs,” said North.
