National Football League on television

Since 1970, the regional Sunday games (1:00 p.m. "early" and 4:05/4:25 p.m. "late" games Eastern time) are split into AFC and NFC "packages." Each package is held by a single network: CBS has held the AFC package since 1998, and Fox has held the NFC package since 1994. These packages include Sunday afternoon games during each week of the regular season, a single game for each network on Thanksgiving, wild card playoff games, divisional playoff games, and the respective conference championship game for each network.

In 1970, when the NFL and AFL merged, and home blackouts were put into place for AFC games (some AFL teams had lifted these during its run; as an example, most New York Jets' home games in 1968 and 1969 were telecast on WNBC-TV New York), this assured that all Sunday afternoon away games would be seen on the same network.

The Sunday games are classified as "A", "B", or "C" games. "A" games are usually the primary game for each network (1:00 ET for Eastern and Central time zone or 4:05 ET for Mountain and Pacific time zone games in a single-game week), and if the network has a doubleheader, is typically the 4:25 ET game. "B" games are typically the primary 1:00 ET game when the network has a doubleheader, or the secondary game if the network has a single game. "C" games are only shown in the playing teams markets and in some cases, markets if the game has playoff implications for the local team.

Market size and team success plays a huge factor in determining the level of games. For example, Green Bay has a city population of 105,000, one of the smallest for a city with a sports team. But the Packers usually have the "A" or "B" game because of their long history and almost unparalleled success. (The team is actually two markets for the NFL policy; Milwaukee is the other primary market for the team.) The Dallas Cowboys (due to that team's national popularity) and the New England Patriots (due to that team's success since Bill Belichick took over in 2000) have typically been shown in the national doubleheader timeslot in recent years for ratings purposes, despite affiliate requests to show a team that may have more appeal locally; these games are typically decided by the NFL and CBS or Fox, depending on who has the doubleheader that week.[27][28][29]

For interconference games, the visiting team generally determines which network is assigned for the game: an AFC team at NFC team game is typically assigned to CBS, and an NFC at AFC game is generally given to Fox. This allows both Fox and CBS affiliates in a team's primary market to carry games from the team during the season.

After a Broncos-Vikings game was moved to Fox in 2011 because of Fox having a lack of games as a result of an NFL flexible scheduling policy (see below), the NFL permanently instituted a "cross-flex" policy in 2014, allowing Fox games to be moved to CBS and CBS games moved to Fox.

On occasion, both of a team's home interconference games are played in prime time, depriving the opposite conference's network of any games involving the team. This happened in 1978 to the Los Angeles Rams, 1990 to the Indianapolis Colts, 1992 to the Houston Oilers, 1993 to both the Buffalo Bills and San Diego Chargers, 1997 and 2003 to the Miami Dolphins, 1999 to the New England Patriots, 2005 to the Baltimore Ravens, 2013 to the Atlanta Falcons and 2015 to the Arizona Cardinals. In the 1997 Dolphins' case, their home game against the Chicago Bears had been initially slated for Fox, but was moved to Monday night due to Game 7 of the World Series that was played in the previous night. In the 2015 Cardinals' case, their home game against the Cincinnati Bengals had been initially slated for CBS, but was moved to Sunday night on NBC via flexible scheduling.

The 2016 Arizona Cardinals, 2018 Detroit Lions, 2019 New Orleans Saints and 2020 New York Giants, all NFC teams, also had both their home interconference games in prime time, but aired at least once on CBS regardless: the Cardinals appeared on Thursday Night Football in Week 5 at the San Francisco 49ers, the Lions appeared in their traditional Thanksgiving Day game against the Chicago Bears, the Saints had their games against the Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers crossflexed from Fox, and the Giants had their games against the Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys crossflexed from Fox.

The Seattle Seahawks did not appear on NBC in their inaugural season of 1976, nor did the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1977, despite neither playing a single prime time game. In 1976, Seattle played in the NFC West and played their sole interconference game at Tampa Bay (thus on CBS), whereas in 1977, the teams swapped conferences, so Tampa Bay played in the NFC Central and played their sole interconference game at Seattle (thus on CBS). Seattle would later return to the NFC West in 2002.

In addition to the above, a few teams prior to the 2002 realignment had their sole home interconference game played in prime time. From 1978–2001, this happened in 1982 to the Detroit Lions, Buffalo Bills and Houston Oilers, 1987 to the Miami Dolphins and Dallas Cowboys, 1991 to the Minnesota Vikings and 2001 to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The 1982 and 1987 teams all had one of their two scheduled interconference home games cancelled by a players' strike. Additionally, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only NFL team to complete a perfect season, did not appear on CBS; their lone interconference home game vs. the St. Louis Cardinals was broadcast on Monday Night Football, and Super Bowl VII was broadcast by NBC.

Three games (with some contractual exceptions, see below) are broadcast in any one market each Sunday morning/afternoon, with one network being allocated a "doubleheader" each week:[30]

• A 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT) "early" game and a 4:25 p.m. ET (1:25 p.m. PT) "late" game

While the other network broadcasting either:

• A 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT) game
• Or a 4:05 p.m. ET (1:05 p.m. PT) game

Since 1998, early games have the precise, official start time of 1:01 p.m. ET,[31] which allows for one network commercial and the NFL broadcast copyright teaser animation. However, game times are generally advertised simply as 1 p.m. starts. In addition, the league revised the late games to start at 4:05 p.m. ET if it was the only game televised by the network that week and to start at 4:15 p.m. ET (moved to 4:25 p.m. ET in 2012) if it was part of a doubleheader. The additional 15 minutes for doubleheaders allowed the early games extra time to be shown to completion, and avoid continuing past the late game's scheduled kickoff. For single games, only 5 minutes were added to allow the network time for a short introduction (as three hours had passed since the pre-game show has aired) and one commercial break before kickoff. In those cases there is no need to avoid early-game overlap as there is no early game shown. In addition, it allows those games to end earlier, which is especially important for CBS, which wants to air 60 Minutes at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT, or as close to that time as possible, in Eastern and Central time markets which receive only a single late game.

Sunday afternoon games in the Mountain and Pacific time zones are always scheduled for 2:05 or 2:25 p.m. Mountain Time and 1:05 or 1:25 p.m. Pacific Time. No games before 12:00 p.m. MT (2:00 p.m. ET) are ever scheduled, partly to avoid conflict with religious services in those cities; Denver had three noon MT kickoffs at Mile High Stadium late in the 1972 season, but the experiment was never repeated.

The state of Arizona lies entirely within the Mountain Time Zone, however, Daylight saving time is only observed within the Navajo Nation. As a result, Arizona is aligned with Pacific Daylight Time from the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday of November. Therefore, home games for the Arizona Cardinals are scheduled for 1:05 or 1:25 p.m. before the end of daylight saving time, and 2:05 or 2:25 p.m. (Mountain Standard Time) after the end of daylight saving time. Similarly, any home Cardinals' games in primetime are scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in the early part of the season and 6:30 p.m. in the later part of the season. Similarly, Indiana, almost all of which is in Eastern Time Zone, did not observe daylight saving time prior to 2006, except for the parts of the state in the Central Time Zone, so from their 1984 relocation to Indianapolis until 2005, Indianapolis Colts home games were scheduled for 12:00 p.m./3:05 p.m./3:15 p.m. local kickoff prior to the end of daylight saving for the year and 1:00 p.m./4:05 p.m./4:15 p.m. local in the later part of the season. With all of Indiana observing DST since 2006, the hour adjustments for local time kickoffs are no longer necessary for Colts home games.

Fox and CBS each have eight doubleheader weeks during the season during the first 16 weeks.[30] These are not necessarily alternating weeks; one network may have two or rarely three consecutive doubleheaders; this only occurs when one network has a doubleheader week 15 and 16, and then both networks have doubleheaders week 17; has happened to FOX 2019 and CBS 2018. Fox insists on having a doubleheader on the Sunday it airs a World Series game (typically Game 5), and uses the featured 4:25 game as a lead in for the baseball playoffs (though in 1996, 2001, 2005, 2014, 2019 and 2020 Fox did not have a doubleheader on the day it broadcast of the World Series).[32]

During Week 17, both networks are given doubleheaders; this has been the case since 2006.[33][34] From 1990 through 2005, one network received nine doubleheaders during the 17-week season, and the other network received eight (except 1993, when CBS and NBC each received nine in an 18-week regular season).

Doubleheader allotments were often assigned with restrictions because of other network commitments. This happened during Finals Sunday of the U.S. Open tennis championships (September) (Week 1, for CBS 1975–1993, 1998–2014), or Major League Baseball playoffs in October (NBC, typically during League Championship Series from 1976 to 1989, and again in 1996 and 1997, World Series 1978 to 1984, when Sunday games were afternoon games, and CBS, League Championship Series, 1990 to 1993). During these weeks, the restricted conference's teams in the Mountain and Pacific time zones could not play at home during the weekend in question, unless they either hosted an interconference game, or were scheduled in prime time (regardless of opponent). The rule was effectively eliminated by the new cross-flex rule in 2014, meaning the NFL could apply the new rule and assign games that would be on the restricted network to the other network. In 1991 (Charleston, South Carolina market) and 1995 (Rochester, New York market), NBC did not allow their games to be played in the early slot (1:00 p.m. ET) in order to cover the final day of matches in golf's Ryder Cup (no restrictions in 1993 because the matches would end before 5:30 p.m. local time, or 12:30 p.m. ET).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the league had to accommodate similar broadcasting conflicts when two men's major golf championships were postponed to the fall. The league gave Fox one late game in Week 2, Washington Football Team at Arizona Cardinals, to allow viewers to see the conclusion of the U.S. Open on Fox Sports 1 September 20.[35] Rights to the golf tournament were later transferred to NBC, whose single primetime window for football rendered the point moot.[36] Similarly with final round of The Masters rescheduled for November 15, CBS was not given any early games in Week 10.[37]

Satellite broadcast company DirecTV offers NFL Sunday Ticket, a subscription-based package that allows all Sunday afternoon regional games to be watched. The only exception is that Sunday Ticket is subject to the same blackout rules as broadcast networks.[38][39] This package is exclusive to DirecTV in the US. In Canada, NFL Sunday Ticket is available on a per-provider distribution deal on both cable and satellite, because Canadian law generally prevents one provider from offering a package on an exclusive basis.

Several factors determine which games are carried in each market. Each of the 32 NFL teams is assigned a "primary market" which is the metropolitan area where the club is located. Most teams also have a selected number of secondary markets. Secondary markets - which are almost exclusively non-NFL cities and towns - can be of any size, and are typically defined by an area where any part of the market falls within 75 miles of an NFL stadium. Small markets that have no clubs tend to strongly associate with geographically nearby or particularly relevant teams, but may fall outside of a 100-mile radius, are not necessarily an officially designated secondary markets by the NFL. Generally, games are aired in the primary and secondary markets as follows:

• All away games are aired in the primary and secondary markets. This is a gesture to old policies based on the ability for fans to attend games. Away games were looked upon as too difficult to travel to and attend.
• All sold-out home games are aired in the primary market. Games that do not sell out at least 72 hours prior to kickoff are subject to local blackout in the primary and all secondary markets. (see below)

The NFL rules have traditionally prohibited other NFL games from being shown on local television stations while a local team is playing a sold out, locally televised home game. Under these rules, when the home team is being shown on the network with the NFL single game, the doubleheader station can only air one of its games.[30] When this happens, there are only two games shown in the market. However, when the home team is being shown on the network with the NFL doubleheader, all three games can still air in the same market.[40]

The rule was designed to encourage ticket-holders to show up at the stadium instead of watching another game on television. However, each network was guaranteed to have at least one game broadcast in every market, so some exceptions are granted to this rule, typically when one of the two Sunday game networks has a 1:00 p.m. or 4:30 p.m. live non-NFL event, such as golf, tennis, or baseball.

Since 2014, this rule has not applied in Week 17 when both CBS and Fox have the doubleheader, so all markets receive four games that week. In 2019, this rule was loosened as a one-year test, allowing each market to air three games in some weeks regardless if the local team is playing at home.[41][42]

Prior to the 2000 season, doubleheader rules were much more restrictive. Pre-2000, only one game from each network could be aired in a market where a home game was played, even if the home game was on the doubleheader network. Therefore, markets with two teams (such as New York) rarely got more than two games, since odds were that one of the two teams would be at home on any given Sunday.[43] Consequently, the Jets or Giants were often scheduled on Saturday in the final two weeks of the season to free up Sunday for the other New York team.

During the afternoon games, CBS and Fox may switch a market's game to a more competitive one mid-game, particularly when a game becomes one-sided. For this to occur, one team must be ahead by at least 18 points in the second half.[30]

Due to the "Heidi Game", a primary media market must show its local team's game in its entirety and secondary markets usually follow suit for away games. Also, secondary markets (for home games) or any others where one team's popularity stands out may request a constant feed of that game, and in that case will not be switched.[30]

If the local team is scheduled for the late game of a doubleheader, it has importance over any early game.[30] If 4:25 p.m. arrives, and the early game is ongoing, the primary affiliate (all games) and secondary affiliates (road games) are required to cut off the early game and switch to the start of the local team's game. Additional affiliates, including secondary affiliates for home games, may also request to pull out of an early game for a nearby team's late start. This is common in Texas, where many affiliates which are not considered secondary markets by the NFL still switch out of early games in order to get to the start of a 4:25 Dallas Cowboys game.

When a local team plays the early game of a doubleheader, that game holds importance over any late game. If the local team's early game runs beyond 4:25 p.m., the primary and secondary markets stay on until completion, and the late game is joined in-progress.

For this reason, if two teams share a primary media market, their games are never scheduled on the same network on the same day (unless they play each other). Otherwise, the networks could theoretically have to cut away from one team's game to show the other. Since 2020, two pairs of teams are affected by this rule, and are subject to additional rules described below:

• The New York Giants and New York Jets
• The Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers

The Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams gained shared-marked status, after the Rams' returned to Los Angeles (from St. Louis) in 2016, followed by the Chargers (from San Diego) in 2017. After playing in separate stadiums from 2017 to 2019, they began sharing SoFi Stadium in 2020.

• Every season, the Chargers and the Rams play at least 21 combined games which cannot be scheduled in the Sunday early time slot because they and most of their respective AFC West and NFC West rivals are in the Pacific and Mountain time zones: eight home games for each team; the Chargers' away games at the Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders (since the Kansas City Chiefs are in the Central Time Zone, which can be played in the early time slot); and the Rams' away games at the Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers, and Seattle Seahawks. This count increases during seasons when the AFC West and NFC West play each other in interconference games.
• The Rams' two interconference home games (with a visiting AFC team) are televised by CBS, and the Chargers' interconference home games (with a visiting NFC team) are on Fox, unless they are scheduled in prime time or are cross-flexed. This also limits the broadcast opportunities for the other team's game.
• When the Chargers and the Rams played in separate stadiums from 2017 to 2019, there were several times that both teams played late games on Sunday (including Week 2 of 2017 when both were at home), each of different networks. Whenever this happened, the must-show rule trumped the exclusivity rule, resulting in both games being shown in the Los Angeles Area at the same time. Although both teams now share SoFi Stadium, they can still play late games at the same time on Sunday, only that one of them can be at home. On weeks both teams play home games, the other game is played either on Thursday or Monday night.

For the 2017 season, the NFL arranged four weeks in which one network would carry both the Rams and Chargers in separate time slots while the other had the rights to a doubleheader, thus giving the Los Angeles market four games in those weeks. Fox split its coverage between its two Los Angeles stations, KTTV and MyNetworkTV affiliate KCOP-TV.[44] Likewise, CBS split between KCBS-TV and sister station KCAL-TV. These instances required cross-flexing of one NFC game (the Rams hosted the Seattle Seahawks in Week 5 on CBS) and one AFC game (the Chargers hosted the Buffalo Bills on Fox in Week 11).

The New York Giants and New York Jets began sharing the New York City market after the Jets began play in 1960. Both teams played at Giants Stadium from 1984 to 2009, and then have shared MetLife Stadium since 2010.

Originally, the league almost never scheduled the Giants and the Jets to play their games at the same time. The league first allowed exceptions during the 2009 season due to unusual scheduling logistics. These exceptions marked the first times since the 1984 season that the Giants and Jets played games simultaneously.[45] In the 2017 season, the teams were scheduled for the same time slot five times.

• The aforementioned Chargers and Rams' late time slot requirement does not exist for the Giants and Jets. Since all AFC East and NFC East teams are either in the Eastern or Central time zones, most of their games can be played in either the early 1:00 p.m. or the late 4:05 p.m./4:25 p.m. time slots.
• However, it is still impossible for both New York teams to play home games on the same day, because they share MetLife Stadium. Therefore, the other same conflicts still exists.
  • As an example aversion, in 2016, the Jets hosted the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams. The former game was scheduled during the same week in which the Giants played the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football, while the latter game was scheduled during the same week in which the Giants played the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday Night Football. Conversely, the Giants' other interconference home game, vs. the Baltimore Ravens, was scheduled during the same week in which the Jets played on Monday Night Football.

Although in close proximity, the Washington Football Team and Baltimore Ravens are served by separate media markets, and so they can play at the same time and even on the same network. If both teams play at the same time on opposite networks with at least one at home, both games have aired in each market on a few occasions. Because Washington D.C. is an official secondary market for the Ravens but Baltimore is not an official secondary market for Washington, most cases involve a Ravens away game being aired in D.C. opposite a Washington home game.

In 2016, the same rule applied in Los Angeles, as Los Angeles was a primary market for the Rams and a secondary market for the Chargers (as the team was still playing in San Diego). However, no Chargers away games were scheduled opposite Rams home games.

When the Rams and Raiders shared the Los Angeles market from 1982 to 1994, the NFL was more lenient on its shared media markets policies, frequently scheduling home games for both teams at the same time. For example, during Week 17 of the 1994 season, their last respective home games in Los Angeles, both the Washington Redskins at Rams game and the Kansas City Chiefs at Raiders game were played at 1 p.m. PT. Likewise, the late Sunday afternoon games during Week 11 of the 1993 season included both the Kansas City Chiefs at the Raiders and the Atlanta Falcons at the Rams. Both the Rams and Raiders usually had trouble selling out their respective stadiums during their time in Los Angeles, thus their home games were frequently blacked out anyway.

When the 49ers and Raiders shared the Bay Area market from 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019, originally the teams were typically not scheduled at the same time. To alleviate conflicts, both teams were scheduled for at least one prime time game, regardless of their records during the previous season.[46]

In 2010, with the Broncos–49ers game being played in London, England during Week 8 of that season, the game occurred in the early time slot, something that would have been prohibited had the game been played in San Francisco. This allowed the Raiders to host the Seahawks on that day, marking the first time the 49ers played on CBS and the Raiders played on Fox on the same day, though the Raiders game was blacked out locally.

Starting in 2012, there were a number of times that the Raiders and 49ers both played late games on Sunday, often during Week 17. Whenever this happened, the must-show rule trumped the exclusivity rule, resulting in both games being shown in the Bay Area at the same time.

After the Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020, the schedule continues to be made so that the 49ers and Raiders are never scheduled to play at the same time on the same network so that all Raiders games can continue to air in the Bay Area market.[47] With the Bay Area no longer being a shared market, the two teams can play at different times on the doubleheader network.

When a media market's regionally televised game ends before the others, the network (CBS or Fox) may switch to "bonus coverage" of the ending of another game. However, the league imposes two restrictions that are designed to maximize the ratings of the late games on the doubleheader network, which tend to record the most NFL viewers during the day, often beating the audience for Sunday night games.

First, bonus coverage offered after any early time slot games cannot be shown past the start of the late time slot (either 4:20 ET for the doubleheader network or 4:25 ET for the non-doubleheader network). This prevents people from continuing to watch the bonus coverage instead of seeing the beginning of the late doubleheader network's game (which is usually either their local team or the network's featured game). Again, the networks may show highlights of the game, and usually will at the earliest opportunity. The network broadcasting the single game will sometimes show each play as soon as it ends as part of its post-game show. A station originally getting the game featured during bonus coverage will stay with it unless they are leaving to show a local team.

Second, bonus coverage cannot be shown after a late game on the single-game network because it will run in opposition to the ending of the late doubleheader network's game(s) and NBC's pre-game show. However, the single-game network usually schedules most of its top games in the early 1:00 ET time slot (except for west coast teams' home games, and possibly either a Giants or Jets game), so this does not tend to be a major issue.

If the doubleheader network's games all finish before 7:30 ET, it is supposed to conclude the post-game show within 10 minutes to protect NBC's pre-game show. If any games finish after 7:30, the post-game program can run until 8:00 ET. However, this restriction seems to apply to game footage only; on several occasions Fox has run its post-game offering to 8:00, despite all games ending before 7:30, by airing only panel discussions and interviews in the latter portion of the show. On the other hand, CBS rarely airs any post-game show after its doubleheaders or 4:05 single-games. This is because 60 Minutes is one of its signature shows, and CBS makes every effort to start it as close to 7:00 or 7:30—its traditional airtime—as possible.

NBC has broadcast the marquee "game of the week" nationally since 2006. Before 2006, the "game of the week" was considered to be Monday Night Football on ABC. However, ESPN previously aired games on Sunday nights from 1987-2005, and TNT aired games from 1990-1997.

Since 2012, a Thursday night game went into effect during every week of the season with the exception of Week 17. Each game is aired on the NFL Network, with the exceptions of the Week 1 NFL Kickoff and Thanksgiving Day games, which are aired on NBC. The season-kickoff game for the 2012 season was moved up a day — to a Wednesday, in order to avoid conflict with President Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. Since the NFL tries to avoid scheduling Thursday night games during the season which would require the visiting team to travel more than one time zone (excluding the Week 1 Kickoff),[48] the five teams in the Pacific Time Zone — the Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks — would have more limited scheduling options in years that the AFC West and NFC West divisions don't face each other in interconference play. There have been some notable exceptions: the Kansas City Chiefs, who are based in the Central Time Zone, have played both the Chargers and Raiders on Thursdays; the Rams, who were based in St. Louis until 2015, played against the 49ers in 2013; though the Arizona Cardinals are based in the Mountain Time Zone, they effectively observe Pacific Daylight Time until the first weekend of November due to not observing Daylight saving time, and played at the St. Louis Rams early in the 2012 season; the Raiders played at the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving in 2013.

Until 2014, teams that played on Thanksgiving in a given year typically did not appear on the NFL Network package that season, with the exception of 2007, when the Cowboys played the Green Bay Packers on week after their traditional Thanksgiving game. The Cowboys and Detroit Lions were ineligible for appearing on the NFL Network, due to hosting Thanksgiving games every year. Each year since 2014, the Thursday Night game the week after Thanksgiving has featured two teams that played on Thanksgiving, effectively giving both teams a full week of practice rather than the short week that most teams have for a Thursday Night game.

In 2014, CBS had simulcast Thursday night games between Weeks 2–8 and televised one of two Saturday games in Week 16,[49] and each Thursday night game was an intra-division game, except for the Packers–Seahawks Week 1 NBC kickoff and the Cowboys–Bears game in Week 14. The two Saturday games in Week 16 — Eagles–Redskins and Chargers–49ers — aired beginning at 4:30 p.m. ET. The 4:30 p.m. ET game was televised by the NFL Network, while the other began shortly after 8:00 p.m. ET, and aired on CBS.

Between 1970 and 1977, and again since 2003, there has been no Monday night game during the last week of the season. From 1978 until 2002, a season-ending Monday night game was scheduled. The 2003 revision permits the NFL to have all eight teams involved in the Wild Card playoffs to have equal time in preparation, instead of the possibility of one or two teams having a shorter preparation for their playoff game if they were picked to play on Saturday, instead of Sunday. This scenario, in which a team finishing its season on Monday night had a playoff game the following Saturday, never occurred.

Since 2006, ESPN has opened the season with a Monday Night Football doubleheader, with a 7:00 p.m. game and a 10:30 p.m. both shown in their entirety nationwide. ESPN2 or ESPNEWS (only in 2012 because ESPN2 was airing an MLB game) started the second game if the game on ESPN was not over by the time the second game had started. However, in Week 1 of the 2018 season, the conclusion of the first game of the doubleheader, Jets–Lions, moved to ESPN2 in order to show the beginning of the Rams–Raiders game on ESPN.

To maximize TV ratings, as well as to protect the NFL's ability to sell TV rights collectively, games televised on ESPN or the NFL Network are blacked out in each of the primary markets of both teams (the Green Bay Packers have two primary markets, Green Bay and Milwaukee, a remnant of when they played some home games in Milwaukee each season, see below) under syndicated exclusivity regulations as the league sells via broadcast syndication a package featuring that team's games.

This station does not need to have affiliate connections with a national broadcaster of NFL games, though owned-and-operated stations of ABC and Hearst Television (even those Hearst stations not affiliated with ABC, and including their one independent station in the Tampa-St. Petersburg market) have first right of refusal due to both ESPN and ABC's common ownership by The Walt Disney Company (Hearst holds a 20% stake in ESPN). In recent years, the ABC O&Os have passed on airing the game, opting instead to air the network's Monday night schedule which includes the successful Dancing with the Stars.[50] In other markets, stations who are the affiliates of MyNetworkTV or The CW (and, in at least one case, an independent station[51]) have out bid more established local broadcasters in some markets. However, the home team's market must be completely served by the station and that broadcast can only air if the game is sold out within 72 hours of kick-off (see below).

The NFL's anti-siphoning regulations affect both Monday Night Football on ESPN and NFL Network games. In the markets of the participating teams, the respective cable channel is blacked out. ESPN games air via broadcast syndication to an over-the-air station. Typically, the team's flagship station for the preseason games will hold such rights, as teams will usually sell the preseason, local ESPN, and if the CBS affiliate in that market declines the option, the NFL Network games as one package. Only over-the-air stations in the market of the participating teams (with the Green Bay Packers having two such markets) may bid on this syndicated package. Starting in 2014, CBS affiliates in the primary markets in question have the primary option to NFL Network-only games; if the local affiliate declines the option (as was in Cincinnati), the NFL will implement the same syndicated package rule. In 2016 and 2017, with the TNF package split between CBS and NBC, this depended on which network produces the game for NFL Network. With Fox taking over the TNF package in 2018, Fox affiliates will have the primary option of simulcasting NFL Network games.

This led to controversy in 2007, when the New England Patriots were scheduled to play the New York Giants at Giants Stadium in their regular season finale on the NFL Network, in what was to be a chance to complete the first 16–0 regular season in NFL history. After the Senate Judiciary Committee threatened the NFL's antitrust exemption if it did not make the game available nationwide, the NFL relented and made the game the first in league history to be simulcast on three networks. The game aired on the NFL Network, as planned; on NBC, which would normally have the rights to prime time games; and, since the away team was an AFC team, on CBS.[52] (WCVB in Boston holds the rights to the NFL's syndicated package for Patriots games, causing this game to be available on 3 over-the-air stations in the Boston TV market). This however, did not lead to the NFL offering this package to other channels; the games have remained on the NFL Network, although cable coverage of NFL Network has increased in the intervening period.

Under the agreement for the 2014 season between CBS and the NFL Network for Thursday Night Football simulcasts during the first half of the season, local rights to such games that are not carried by CBS are awarded to the markets' CBS affiliates, rather than syndicated. If the CBS affiliate opts out of the deal, the NFL will offer the package by syndication, typically with the Monday Night package.[53] The CBS/NFL Network deal was extended for the 2015 season on January 18, 2015.[54] For the 2016 season, two midseason TNF games were NFL Network-exclusive but produced by NBC; the NBC affiliates in those markets with teams competing carried those games in-market. With the 2018 move of the package to Fox, the two NFL Network-exclusive games produced by Fox actually varied between NBC and CBS affiliates rather than being exclusive to the Fox stations in each market.

On November 8, 1987, the very first NFL game ever aired on ESPN was played between the New England Patriots and New York Giants. Technically, the game was only simulcast in the Boston market, with a separate broadcast produced for the New York market by ESPN sister property WABC-TV – at the time, WABC's union contract prohibited non-union workers (like those of ESPN) from working on live events broadcast on the station. This marked the only time since the AFL–NFL merger that a regular season game was locally produced for TV. The WABC broadcast featured WABC's own Corey McPherrin doing play-by-play, and Frank Gifford and Lynn Swann from Monday Night Football doing color commentary (Gifford and Swann did not have to travel further for their Monday Night game, which was Seahawks at Jets.).

Since the 1970 AFL–NFL merger, the NFL has taken an informal approach to scheduling games on Saturdays after the end of the college football season, with the scheduling policy changing many times. From 1970 to 2005, both of the Sunday afternoon broadcast networks (CBS and NBC from 1970–1993, Fox and NBC from 1994–1997, and Fox and CBS from 1998–2005) were given at least two Saturday afternoon national broadcasts in December, with ESPN also airing one Saturday game in primetime from 1998 to 2005.

In 2006, the schedule was cut to three Saturday games, which aired in primetime and were televised on the NFL Network in December. In 2008, this was changed to only one Saturday game, still aired in primetime on the NFL Network, which was the policy through 2011. For the 2012 season, ESPN aired the lone Saturday game in primetime. No Saturday game was scheduled in 2013, the first time since the 1970 merger that the NFL did not play any regular season games on Saturday.

In 2014, the NFL returned to Saturdays with a Week 16 doubleheader, with the Saturday afternoon game airing on the NFL Network and a Saturday night game airing on CBS. CBS Sports produced coverage for both games. In 2015, this schedule was modified again to one Saturday night game during both Week 15 and Week 16, these games were cable-only and produced by CBS. In 2016, Christmas fell on a Sunday, so the regional slate of week 16 games will air on Saturday afternoon, with a national game also airing that night, along with a national week 15 Saturday game the previous week, with CBS and Fox producing the regional games and NBC producing the national games for cable.

Several notable games have taken place on Saturdays, including the New England Patriots' historic comeback from a 22–3 deficit in the fourth quarter against the New York Giants in 1996, a game the same season between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Jets in which the Eagles won in dramatic fashion over the 1-13 Jets to keep their playoff hopes alive (they would eventually qualify), the final game at Three Rivers Stadium featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins in 2000, another Patriots-Giants matchup in 2007 which saw the Patriots complete a 16–0 season and was simulcast on three networks, the last-ever match at Texas Stadium won by the Baltimore Ravens over the Dallas Cowboys in 2008,[55] a 2012 game between the Detroit Lions and the Atlanta Falcons in which Calvin Johnson of the Lions set the NFL record for receiving yards in one season, and a 2015 game between the Eagles and the Redskins to decide the NFC East champion.

(Under Federal law, specifically the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, in order to maintain its antitrust exemption, the NFL is not permitted the "telecasting of all or a substantial part of any professional football game on any Friday after six o’clock postmeridian or on any Saturday during the period beginning on the second Friday in September and ending on the second Saturday in December in any year from any telecasting station located within seventy-five miles of the game site of any intercollegiate or interscholastic football contest[.]" 15 U.S.C. § 1293)

Thanksgiving Day contests have been held since before the league's inception. The Detroit Lions have hosted a game every Thanksgiving since 1934 (with the exception of 1939–1944 due to the "Franksgiving" confusion and World War II), and they have been nationally televised since 1953. The first color television broadcast of an NFL regular season game was the 1965 Thanksgiving contest between the Lions and Baltimore Colts. In 1966, the NFL introduced an annual game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys, which has been played every year except in 1975 and 1977 when the St. Louis Cardinals hosted a match instead. However, fans both inside and outside St. Louis did not respond well to an NFL fixture on Thanksgiving, and thus Dallas resumed hosting the game in 1978.

When the AFL began holding annual Thanksgiving Day games, the league chose a different model, circulating the game among several cities. During the 1967–69 seasons, two Thanksgiving AFL games were televised each year.

After the 1970 merger, the NFL decided to keep only the traditional Detroit and Dallas games. Due to the broadcast contracts in place since 1970, three NFC teams play on Thanksgiving, as opposed to only one AFC outfit. During even years, the Lions play their Thanksgiving game against an AFC team, and thus are televised by the network holding the AFC package (NBC and later CBS since 1998); the Cowboys host an NFC team and are shown by the network with the NFC package (CBS and later Fox since 1994). During odd years, Dallas hosts an AFC team and Detroit plays an NFC opponent (usually another NFC North team, and often the Green Bay Packers, who draw high TV ratings). Every decade or so, this even-odd rotation was reversed, Detroit hosting an NFC team in even years and an AFC team in odd years, Dallas hosting an AFC team in even years and an NFC team in odd years. Detroit is always the early broadcast and Dallas the mid-afternoon broadcast.

Following the introduction of Thursday Night Football in 2006, a third Thanksgiving game was added, a primetime game hosted by one of the remaining 30 NFL teams each year. While the first game featured two AFC teams, conference affiliation has varied since. Starting in 2012, the prime time Thanksgiving game has aired on NBC. In the future, the NFL may use flexible scheduling to allow the Lions or Cowboys to host a prime-time game, provided an Eastern time zone team is given the early (12:30 p.m.) slot.

Starting in 2014, changes to the NFL television contract allow either traditional Thanksgiving game to prime time (and NBC) and schedule an AFC game in either window to accommodate CBS, while Fox would get the other traditional game with Dallas or Detroit; to date, this has never happened. Cross-flexing also liberated CBS and Fox from their usual conference affiliation on Thursdays; thus Dallas and Detroit both hosted NFC opponents in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2018 (In 2014, 2015, and 2018, the prime time game also featured two NFC franchises, so the AFC was completely shut out of the holiday those years). Fox has yet to broadcast an AFC team on Thanksgiving.

In recent years, the NFL has generally scheduled games on Christmas only if it falls on a day normally used for games (Saturday, Sunday, Monday). If Christmas falls on a Sunday, most of the games are to be played on the preceding day, Saturday, December 24, with two games scheduled for Christmas Night to be broadcast nationally (which most recently happened in 2016).

The first NFL games played on December 25 came during the 1971 season. The first two games of the Divisional Playoff Round that year were held on Christmas Day. The first game that day was between Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings. The second of the two contests played that day, the Miami Dolphins versus the Kansas City Chiefs, ended up being the longest game in NFL history.[63] The league received numerous complaints due to the length of this game, reportedly because it caused havoc with Christmas dinners around the nation. As a result, the NFL decided to not schedule any Christmas Day matches for the next 17 seasons.

In 1976 and 1977, the last two years before the advent of the 16-game schedule and expanded playoffs, the NFL came up with different approaches to avoid Christmas play. In 1976, when Christmas fell on a Saturday, the league moved the start of the regular season up one week to Sunday, September 12. The divisional playoffs were held on the weekend of December 18 and 19, leaving the conference championship games on Sunday, December 26. Super Bowl XI was played on January 9, 1977, the earliest it has ever been held. In 1977, with Christmas on Sunday, the NFL split the divisional playoffs, and for the only time since the AFL–NFL merger, each conference held both divisional playoff games the same day (AFC Saturday, December 24 and NFC Monday, December 26), ostensibly not to give one team a two-day rest advantage over the other for the conference championship games. Since two of the venues were in the Western United States, it was not possible to have regional coverage in both time slots on either day.

The NFL continued to avoid Christmas even after it started to increase the regular season and the playoffs. The league expanded to a 16-game regular season and a 10-team playoff tournament in 1978, but it was not until 1982 that the regular season ended after Christmas, due to the players' strike. In 1989, the NFL tried another Christmas Day game, with the Cincinnati Bengals hosted by the Minnesota Vikings, but it was a 9:00 p.m. ET Monday Night Football contest, thereby not conflicting with family dinners. In the years since, the NFL has played an occasional late-afternoon or night game on the holiday but there has not been a Christmas Day game starting earlier than 4:30 p.m. ET since 1971.

There have also been several games played on Christmas Eve over the years, including an Oakland Raiders–Baltimore Colts playoff contest in 1977 which culminated in a play known as "Ghost to the Post". These games have typically been played during the afternoon out of deference to the holiday.

The NFL only stages games on New Year's Day when it falls on a Sunday. Historically, this was in deference to the numerous college football bowl games traditionally held on New Year's Day; in recent years, New Year's Day has consistently fallen in the last week of the NFL's regular season, and the league's policy is to play all of the last games of the week on one day (Sunday, which, if it falls on January 1, typically prompts the bowl games on that day, as well as the NHL Winter Classic) to be played on Monday, January 2) to ensure an equal amount of rest heading into the playoffs. In years when January 1 falls on a Monday, all 32 teams will play on New Year's Eve.

The AFL played its first league championship game on January 1, 1961. Thereafter, pro football has been played on New Year's Day in 1967 (the 1966 NFL and AFL Championship Games), in 1978 (the 1977 NFC and AFC Championship Games), in 1984 (the 1983 NFC and AFC Divisional Playoff Games), in 1989 (the 1988 NFC and AFC Divisional Playoff Games), in 1995 (the second half of the 1994 NFC and AFC Wild Card Games), and in 2006, 2012, and 2017 (the final weekend of the 2005, 2011, and 2016 regular seasons), with scheduling likely for 2023.

• The NFL scheduled Monday Night Football games on Labor Day in the past, but has not done so since 2000, as it was determined that games during the Labor Day weekend were the lowest-rated of the season. Games are always scheduled on Columbus Day, a federal holiday not universally celebrated by all states.
• The NFL only plays on Halloween or Veterans Day if the holiday falls on a day in which football is normally played (Thursday, Sunday, or Monday).

NBC Sunday Night Football became the only second regular live prime time television program in U.S. history to emerge as the most watched overall U.S. television series, after ending Fox's American Idol's record of eight consecutive seasons on hold of the rank in the 2011–12 season.[71] The series has held this rank every season since, except 2012-13 and 2017-18 season when CBS shows NCIS and The Big Bang Theory, respectively earned the title.

As of 2021, Super Bowl XLIX on NBC in 2015 remains the most watched telecast by average in U.S. history, attracting 115 million viewers for both halves of the game.[72][73] Also, Super Bowl LI on Fox in 2017 remains the most watched telecast on peak conclusion in U.S. history, drawing 172 million viewers (more than half of the U.S. population of 340 million that same year) in the league's first overtime period ever for a Super Bowl final.[74][75]

In November 2017, ratings for the first seven weeks declined by 5% compared to the same period in 2016; and decreased by 15% when compared to the same period in 2015, a strong season. Although ratings for the NFL have declined steadily after the Super Bowl in 2015, the latter remains the only program on U.S. television to have attracted at least 100 million viewers on a single night annually since the 1983 series finale of M*A*S*H on CBS.[76][77]

Ratings for the NFL live games on seasonal average have since rebounded from 2018 onwards, rising 3% through the first ten weeks of the 2018 season compared to the same period in 2017, in contrast with scripted programs on the same networks that fell 16% year-over-year in viewership figures. The annual Super Bowl telecasts (including the halftime shows) have regularly attracted more than 100 million viewers in the United States alone since 2010, making it the only broadcast in U.S. television history to exceed the said annual viewership threshold for at least 10 consecutive years.[78]

The style of pro football broadcasting has seen several changes since the 1990s, including female hosts and sideline reporters, visual first-down markers, advanced graphics, new multi-camera angles, and high definition telecasts. The most recent contract extensions have, for the first time, allowed the networks to broadcast games on the Internet.

Current English-language broadcasters:

• NBC
  • 1939, 1955–1963: (NFL)
  • 1965–1969: (AFL)
  • 1970–1997: (AFC – Sundays, Thanksgiving, two Saturdays)
    • 1970–1983: All AFC playoff games, Super Bowl every two years
    • 1984–1989: All AFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years
    • 1990–1997: Most AFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years
  • 2006–2022: NBC Sunday Night Football, Kickoff game, Super Bowl every three years
    • 2006–2013: Two wild-card playoff games
    • 2012–2022: Thanksgiving primetime game
    • 2014–2019: One wild-card playoff game, one divisional playoff game
    • 2016–2017: Several Thursdays, rare Saturdays [simulcast on NFL Network]
    • 2020–2022: Two wild-card playoff games, one divisional playoff game
• CBS
  • 1956–1969: (NFL – Sundays & several Mondays)
  • 1970–1993: (NFC – Sundays, Thanksgiving, two Saturdays)
    • 1970–1983: All NFC playoff games, Super Bowl every two years
    • 1984–1989: All NFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years
    • 1990–1993: Most NFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years
  • 1998–2005: (AFC – Sundays, Thanksgiving, two Saturdays, most AFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years)
  • 2006–2013: (AFC – Sundays, Thanksgiving, most AFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years)
  • 2014–2022: (NFL – Sundays, Thanksgiving, most AFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years)
    • 2014–2017: Several Thursdays, rare Saturdays [either conference, simulcast on NFL Network]
• Fox
  • 1994–2005: (NFC – Sundays, Thanksgiving, two Saturdays, most NFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years)
  • 2006–2013: (NFC – Sundays, Thanksgiving, most NFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years)
  • 2014–2022: (NFL – Sundays, Thanksgiving, most NFC playoff games, Super Bowl every three years)
    • 2018–2022: Several Thursdays, rare Saturdays [either conference, simulcast on NFL Network 2018-2022]
• ESPN
  • 1987–1997: ESPN Sunday Night NFL (second half of season)
  • 1998–2005: ESPN Sunday Night Football (entire season), one Thursday, one Saturday
    • 2002 only: Kickoff game
  • 2006–2021: Monday Night Football (select games simulcast on ABC from 2020-present)
  • 2014: One wild-card playoff game
  • 2015–2021: One wild-card playoff game that is simulcast on ABC
  • 2016-2017: Pro Bowl
  • 2018-2022: Pro Bowl that is simulcast on ABC (from 2018-2020, also simulcast on Disney XD)
• NFL Network
  • 2006–2022: Thursday Night Football, at least one Saturday game (except 2011–2013)
  • 2006–2011 Thanksgiving primetime game

Current Spanish-language broadcasters:

• Universo
  • 2014–2021: NBC simulcasts, including all playoff games
• Fox Deportes
  • 2014–2021: Select Fox simulcasts, including all playoff games and Thursday games broadcast on Fox
• ESPN Deportes (select simulcasts on ESPN2 from 2017 onward)
  • 2006–2021: ESPN/ABC simulcasts, including ESPN's wild card game, plus Super Bowls in CBS-covered years

Former broadcasters:

• DuMont Television Network
  • 1951–1955: Saturday Night Football
• TNT
  • 1990–1997: several Sunday night games (first half of season)
• ABC
  • 1948, 1950, 1953–1955: (NFL)
  • 1960–1964: (AFL)
  • 1970–2005: Monday Night Football
    • 1984–1989: Super Bowl every three years
    • 1990–2005: Two wild-card playoff games, Super Bowl every three years
    • 2003–2005: Kickoff game

One-time and special broadcasts:

• Nickelodeon
  • 2021: Nickelodeon, a service of ViacomCBS, hosted a one-time simulcast in coordination with CBS of the Bears–Saints Wild Card game. The broadcast was aimed towards younger audiences with the inclusion of Nickelodeon cartoon branding as well as commentary from Nick stars Gabrielle Green and Lex Lumpkin.[79]

Since 1982

All dollar amounts are in millions of USD per year.

• Internet services are listed in italics.
• ESPN's Sunday Night Football contract included selected Thursday and Saturday night games in December. Through 2001, the contract included one Thursday night game in October (the weekend of Games 1–2 of the World Series), in lieu of the Sunday night game that weekend. In 2002, the night game was eliminated altogether for that weekend, and replaced with the NFL Kickoff game. In 2003, the NFL Kickoff game moved to ABC (to replace the Week 17 Monday night game), and ESPN filled the void with another late-season Saturday night game.
• ESPN's contract runs through 2021. The CBS, Fox and NBC packages expire in 2022.
• The Kickoff Game, despite being held on Thursday, has been carried on NBC since 2006. The Thanksgiving night game was originally part of the NFL Network's package but was sold to NBC, where it has aired since 2012. For the 2014 and 2015 seasons, Weeks 2 through 8 of the NFL Network package were simulcast on CBS, plus one additional game later in the season, with CBS affiliates also getting local simulcast rights for the games not broadcast across the entire network. If the CBS affiliate declines, the NFL will syndicate the game in a manner similar to ESPN games. The ten games being carried on Twitter in 2016 and Amazon Prime in 2017 are those carried on NBC (excluding kickoff and Thanksgiving games) and CBS.[84]
• As the NFL Network is owned by the league, it pays no rights fees to itself for its game coverage. Under its retransmission consent deals with cable providers, it is required to carry seven exclusive games per year indefinitely.
• All ESPN and NFL Network games also include the league selling the local simulcast rights (about $100,000 per game) for home and visiting teams. For ESPN games, ABC affiliates in primary markets of the playing teams are given right of first refusal, and for NFL Network games, Fox affiliates (since Fox produces the games under the current deal) in the primary markets of the playing teams are given the right of first refusal. If the said affiliate declines the game, the NFL will sell syndication rights to the games in the respective markets in a bidding process each year. In the beginning years of the ESPN games, simulcast rights were shared with the Fox-owned stations.
• Games on the Fox apps FoxNow and Fox Sports App are restricted so that a viewer only has access to the games being carried by their local Fox affiliate or Fox Deportes.
• Prior to 2016, CBS only carried select nationwide games, such as its Thanksgiving games, the AFC Championship, and in years when it holds rights, the Super Bowl. CBS then began to carry games airing on their local affiliates through their paid streaming Paramount All Access service (where available for an affiliate's live stream) beginning with Week 13 of the 2016 NFL season, which is unrestricted outside of non-Verizon mobile handsets, where they were blacked out due to Verizon's exclusivity.[85] The AFC Championship continues to be offered without the paywall.
• ESPN's rights fee also includes non-exclusive rights to the NFL Draft and special rights in regard to carrying highlights on its sportscasts.[86]

Verizon Wireless's exclusive contract to carry NFL telecasts on mobile devices brought in $250 million per year between the 2014 and 2017 seasons.[87] The contract that runs from 2018 through 2022, which does not include exclusivity, has Verizon doubling its rights fee payment to $500 million per year.[88]

NFL Sunday Ticket is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts National Football League (NFL) regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. It carries all regional Sunday afternoon games currently produced by Fox and CBS. The package was launched exclusivity on satellite service provider DirecTV in 1994. Beginning in 2015, the exclusive rights are held by AT&T after their acquisition of DirecTV; however, the package remains exclusive to their DirecTV platform and is unavailable on their U-Verse IPTV platform. The NFL Sunday Ticket package brings in additional revenue not counted in the listing above.[89]

The NFL's status as a prime offering by the networks has led some to conclude that unbiased coverage of the league is not possible, although this may be true of most sports. However, with the current concentration of media ownership in the U.S., the league essentially has broadcast contracts with four media companies (ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, Fox Corporation, and ESPN's parent company The Walt Disney Company) that own a combined vast majority of the American broadcast and cable networks.

ESPN attempted to run a dramatic series showing steamier aspects of pro football, Playmakers, but canceled the series after the league reportedly threatened to exclude the network from the next set of TV contracts. The network also withdrew its partnership with the PBS series Frontline on the 2013 documentary "League of Denial", which chronicles the history of head injuries in the NFL, shortly after a meeting between ESPN executives and league commissioner Roger Goodell took place in New York City, though ESPN denies pressure from the NFL led to its backing out of the project, claiming a lack of editorial control instead.[93][94]

Then in July 2015, The Hollywood Reporter reported that sources within ESPN believed that the NFL gave them a "terrible" 2015 Monday Night Football schedule as "payback" for remarks made on air by both ESPN commentators Keith Olbermann and Bill Simmons that were critical of the league and Goodell;[95] ESPN parted ways with both Olbermann and Simmons during that same year.[96]

In a 2019 interview with ESPN, longtime NBC Sports anchor Bob Costas revealed that he had been relieved of duties as host of Super Bowl LII the previous year after he made comments at a University of Maryland symposium that the sport of football "destroys people's brains." A few years earlier, Costas had been told by NBC brass he could not present an essay on Football Night in America about the 2015 film Concussion because the network was in the process of bidding for the rights to Thursday Night Football.[97]

Counterprogramming, where other networks attempt to offer a program which is intended to compete with the NFL audience for a regular season game, playoff game or the Super Bowl (as Fox did in 1992 with a special segment of the sketch comedy series In Living Color during Super Bowl XXVI), has also been heavily discouraged with the consolidation of rights among the major networks; ESPN generally airs low-profile niche sports such as professional bowling (although one tournament is a pro-am tournament featuring NBA stars), non-conference men's and women's college basketball (often high-profile non-conference games usually occur in November and December during the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks), and minor league sports on Sunday afternoons, along with basic audio-only 'carousel' reports of current NFL scores by reporters from NFL stadiums on their other networks resembling those on ESPN Radio or Fox Sports Radio. Since 2013, ESPN has done some limited counterprogramming using Canadian Football League coverage from sister network and licensing partner TSN; in most cases, ESPN carries games in times when the NFL is not airing (except in cases, such as the Grey Cup, when a conflict is unavoidable). ESPN has also counterprogrammed the NFL's Thursday Night Football games with college football games of its own; the network had been carrying college football on Thursdays years before the NFL decided to play regularly on that night.

Programming on Fox and CBS when game coverage does not occur generally consists of brokered programming which feature extreme sports tours, Professional Bull Riders event coverage, and non-championship golf and bowling broadcasts, along with related documentaries. In recent years, Fox has added a "football-futbol doubleheader" with a 2:00 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. Major League Soccer match, depending on market (the early game goes to markets with a late NFL game, and the late game goes to markets with an early NFL game; MLS, Fox, and the markets in question will work to ensure the late-season push for the playoff games will not clash with the NFL game in the same market; for example, if MLS assigns an Atlanta United FC match to be in such a slot, they will ensure the Atlanta Falcons game will not clash at the same time, as both teams have shared ownership). Fox has also added the PBA Tour bowling coverage of a special preseason event starting in 2018. In many cases, primary market stations will usually air a local postgame show from their station's sports department with analysis and interviews and push the brokered programming to late night or a secondary station, if they carry it at all (there are network mandates to carry the PBR and PBA, for example). NBC, which has the Sunday night package, will run Golf Channel on NBC coverage, including the Evian Championship (a women's major held in France), an early season PGA Tour event (since the 2019–20 season; prior to the calendar change, late-season PGA Tour events were held in September), or an international team tournament (depending on year, Ryder, Solheim, or President's Cup), motorsport (NTT IndyCar Series and NASCAR Cup Series late-season events; all serve as lead-in programming to Football Night in America), and Olympic sports which the demographic is focused towards women, such as ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating. Likewise, since 2010 ABC has run low-profile same-week repeats of their programming in solidarity with ESPN; in 2011, it did air the IZOD IndyCar World Championship (the season finale of the 2011 IndyCar Series season, which itself was abandoned after a major crash that killed reigning Indianapolis 500 champion Dan Wheldon).

Generally, the only networks to counterprogram the Super Bowl currently are niche cable networks with no "sports fan" appeal such as Animal Planet with their Puppy Bowl and imitation programming, and various marathons by other cable networks. In years when it does not carry the game, Fox has often purposely burned off failed sitcoms and dramas to discourage viewers from tuning away from the game, with other networks generally running marathons of popular reality or drama programs (for NBC, The Apprentice has filled this role) merely to fill the evening rather than an actual attempt to counterprogram, and CBS notably runs themed 60 Minutes episodes consisting of past stories featuring figures that fit the episode's theme.

Until 2014 when the highlights program Gameday Live was launched, the NFL Network during 1:00 p.m. regular season games and the playoffs merely featured a still screen with the data of ongoing games on-screen while Sirius XM NFL Radio played in the background with 'carousel' score reports, with only highlights of game action from radio play-by-play heard occasionally.

At the start of the game, a teaser animation is displayed on all broadcasts. "Name of broadcaster welcomes you to the following presentation of the National Football League" (or similar phrasing) is announced, while at the end of the game, the message is "Name of broadcaster thanks you for watching this presentation of the National Football League" (or similar phrasing). This announcement is designed to separate game coverage from news, sports analysis, or entertainment programming not under the NFL contract and ownership.

Since 1998, the NFL has owned the rights to game broadcasts once they air—a copyright disclaimer airs either before the start of the second half or after the first commercial break of the second half, depending on the broadcaster ("This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience [and] any other use of this telecast or [of] any pictures, descriptions or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited.", or similar phrasing). Beginning in the 2016 Playoffs, this was slightly changed to "This broadcast is copyrighted by NFL Productions for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions or accounts of the game without the consent of NFL Productions is prohibited.", or similar phrasing). In the 2017 preseason, this was reverted to the original version. As wholly owned by the league, NFL Network has the exclusive rights to re-air games and a select few are chosen each week.

The NFL has a strict policy prohibiting networks from running ads during official NFL programming (pre- and post-game studio shows and the games themselves) from the gambling industry, and has rejected some ads from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Commissioner Roger Goodell explained in 2007 that it was inappropriate for the sport to be associated with sports betting.[98] These restrictions also apply to any hotels that contain casinos, even if the casino is not mentioned in the ad.[99][100] Officially, wagers such as over/unders and point spreads cannot be acknowledged on-air.[101][102] Despite this policy, Al Michaels has been known for subtly including gambling-related observations in his commentatary, as did Jimmy Snyder during his time as an NFL analyst in the 1980s.[103] Most teams insert similar clauses into their radio contracts, which are locally negotiated. The NFL injury report and required videotaping of practice are intended to prevent gamblers from gaining inside information. In contrast, fantasy football is often free to play. Daily fantasy sports, which are structured to prevent being classified as gambling, air advertisements on the NFL's partner networks on game days, but not during time controlled by the league.

On January 3, 2019, the NFL announced Caesars Entertainment Corporation as the "first ever official casino sponsor of the NFL," though was clear that the deal does not encompass sports betting.[104]

The NFL also bans advertisements in several other product segments, including “dietary or nutritional supplements that contain ingredients other than vitamins and minerals, [..] or any prohibited substance”,[105][106][107] energy drinks, birth control, condoms, and hard liquor.[100] In the 2017 season, the NFL will, with restrictions, allow a limited amount of liquor advertising during broadcasts.[100]

The NFL imposes restrictions on sponsored segments during game coverage; this does not apply to national or local radio broadcasts. These are permitted only prior to kick off, during halftime, and following the game; however, these segments (and other programming with title sponsorships, particularly halftime and post-game shows or other sports properties) can be advertised a couple of times during game coverage, and "aerial footage" providers (i.e. sponsored blimps) may be acknowledged, usually once an hour as is standard in other sports. Other acknowledgments (including HDTV or Skycam-type camera sponsorships) are limited to pre-kickoff and post-game credits. This is done so that, while competitors of the NFL's official sponsors may advertise on game broadcasts, they will not potentially become synonymous with the league through in-game and/or title sponsorship.

Sideline reporters are restricted as to whom they can speak to and when (usually a head coach at halftime, and one or two players before and after the game ends). Information on injured players or rules interpretations are relayed from NFL off-field officials to the TV producers in the truck, who then pass it along to the sideline reporters or booth announcers. Thus, CBS opted in 2006 to no longer use sideline reporters except for some playoff games. ESPN followed suit by reducing the roles of their sideline reporters in 2008. Fox hired former NFL officiating director Mike Pereira in 2010 as a rules analyst, who relays rules interpretations from Los Angeles to the games that network covers, leaving their sideline reporters able to focus less on that role. Likewise, CBS hired retired referee Mike Carey in 2014 in the same role from New York on Sundays and the NFL Network in Culver City during Thursday Night Football games, though he departed the network after the 2015 season and was replaced by Gene Steratore in 2018. During the 2020 season, NFL sideline reporters instead were stationed in the lower portion of seating areas due to COVID-19 protocols, with news relayed to them by team officials or off-air staffers instead.