NFL players are refusing to play 18 games, as they'd prefer to not populate the Super Bowl with third-stringers. The league is thus having to think more creatively about how to squeeze greater revenues out of its existing product.
Sounds like they've come up with a solution that pretty much everybody is going to be OK with: Thursday night football in every week. The league has been putting Thursday nighters on its own NFL Network during the latter halves of seasons, and has used Thursday as its Week 1 kickoff night. But this would open up Weeks 2 through 8, not to mention declare war on the poor ACC.
In the running for the rights to broadcast those games: Atlanta's Turner and Hockeyland's Versus, which airs hockey, whatever that is. Turner did a fine job with March Madness and handles the NBA just fine, while Versus just makes me wonder what hockey is.
FX Network (OH GOD NO), Spike TV (OH G-... actually, that sounds like such a bad idea I kind of want it to happen) and ESPN are also reportedly "kicking the tires."
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