This map shows the Chiefs reign is over
A cartographical exploration of NFL scheduling minutiae
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Today, we’re talking maps.
As recently discussed on the Sporticast, I’m a sicko for sports scheduling. Who was going to take advantage of a relatively light week of football games? (Other football, it turned out.) Why do World Series games start at 8:08 pm? (Because they need to build in time after the anthem for pitcher warmups—and maybe an ad—I think).
And every week of the NFL season, I get to explore a new set of questions embedded in the league’s broadcast maps, beautifully presented by 506sports.com. With both CBS and Fox having doubleheaders Sunday afternoon, Week 15 offers a particularly clear picture of just how complex the NFL programming process is.
The basics are straightforward. Each team’s game is shown in its home markets (yes, even if that means New Yorkers get Jets/Jags and Commanders/Giants on Sunday), as well as adjacent areas, generally speaking.
But outside of that, CBS and Fox get to fill in the rest of the map.
During the complex offseason scheduling process, the NFL generally tries to space out each week’s matchups geographically, giving the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West relevant games. There’s also an effort to include nationally compelling games in each TV window, particularly the 4:25 ET slot that generally has fewer options overall. Those are two of the nearly infinite number of factors that play into the NFL’s gargantuan scheduling challenge, which has only gotten harder as the league adds TV windows outside the traditional Sunday/Thursday/Monday timeslots.1
Sometimes the maps are relatively simple, like Fox’s late slate this week.
Panthers/Saints and 49ers/Titans air regionally, while the rest of the country is treated to Lions/Rams.
CBS’s second window is only slightly more involved, with Seahawks/Colts airing in most of the NFC West and AFC South’s core footprint while others get Packers/Broncos.
But this week’s 1 p.m. ET maps are works of art. Let’s stay with CBS first.
The first thing that jumps out to me is a Chiefs game not airing on the east coast. That’s the first time that’s happened since November 2024 by my math, as KC draws CBS’s No. 3 crew (featuring former Chiefs QB Trent Green, who rarely gets to call the team’s games these days). Instead, a surprisingly dominant Patriots team facing the Bills has conquered 44% of the audience. With a loss on Sunday, Patrick Mahomes could be eliminated from the playoffs. Already, he’s losing ground.
Look closer and you’ll see some notable islands in the mix…
Networks, along with the league, are increasingly sophisticated in how they dole out action. Past viewership figures, social media data—even betting popularity—are used to create viewership predictions that are then maximized on a market-by-market basis (though sometimes the league also encourages broadcasters to spotlight up-and-coming, smaller market teams with its eyes on longer term metrics).
Savvy football fans can likely figure out why Wyoming markets are getting the Buffalo game while the Baton Rouge area was assigned the Bengals. (Hint: Local colleges).
As for Arizona, my best guess is that the league knows the state is full of Northeast expats still eager to tune into the Pats and Bills. That market’s game flipped midweek, possibly because local TV station executives requested a change. Even with reams of data at hand, the final decisions still can come down to gut calls.
With all that in mind, it’s time to look at Fox’s early window in depth.
Isn’t it marvelous? Eagles/Raiders is the most widely distributed game, including a Dallas-sized carveout from the Cardinals/Texans footprint. But Browns/Bears owns the Midwest, stretching from Denver into West Virginia. Three games are airing in different parts of Pennsylvania.
Then there are the southern islands. Fox must expect Jackson State fans in Mississippi to have stuck with Cleveland QB Shedeur Sanders. And in Fort Myers, Florida?
Maybe it’s another case of snowbirds and retirees fleeing frigid Cleveland and Chicago. But another potential factor: Sanders’ Pops was born and raised there.
Enjoy the games this weekend. I’m already looking forward to next week’s maps.
Lev’s 🔥 Take: I am a life-long New York Jets fan, in a group chat of fellow Jets fans, and I guarantee you the majority of us would rather watch the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, and probably even Baltimore vs. Cincinnati for that matter. These maps are beautiful… for everyone but New Yorkers, who are being A Clockwork Orange’d into watching six hours of irrelevant football every week.
On the most recent Sporticast episode, Eben and Scott talked about some big news in college sports. The University of Utah’s trustees recently gave the school’s president and athletic director permission to finalize what might be the first private equity deal in college sports. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about the deal, including the risks 👇
Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.
Given this is the rare week where both CBS and FOX have two game windows, I’d bet the league office thought about stacking the deck with a number of promising matchups to ensure there were enough good ones to go around.
Great read!