CBS-NFL marriage extended to Thursday nights in 2014

• CBS%27 lead announce team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms will work the Thursday games.
• The cross-promotion for the network and the league was too good for either to pass up.
• CBS being the top-rated network%2C and Thursday night a strong night%2C was appealing to the NFL.

The marriage between the NFL and CBS — extended with Wednesday's news that the network will broadcast Thursday night games — is a union where both parties hope to benefit from the muscle-flexing of the other.

CBS, the top-rated network, gets prime-time programming they believe will draw big numbers. The NFL, which has an option to extend the package to 2015, gets more promotion via another network stream.

CBS will show the first eight Thursday games, all simulcast on NFL Network, which has aired the Thursday package and will exclusively get the eight games late in the season. The NFL Network is in about 70 million homes vs. roughly 115 million homes for broadcast networks.

"The thought of going up against NFL football on another network was obviously not very appealing," CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said, "and the opportunity to generate the kind of numbers that the NFL is generating across the board was an opportunity that we just did not want to pass up."

Brian Rolapp, executive vice president of NFL Media, said the goal is to "expose more fans to Thursday Night Football" with a "really big megaphone" — and CBS sounded right.

"CBS made a compelling case on the strength of their viewership and the strength of their ratings," Rolapp said. "Plus, the amount of promotion they were willing to give Thursday Night Football, as well as promoting the NFL Network, really distinguished themselves."

The network's lead announce team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms and the lead production team will work the games.

CBS' strong Thursday night shows — comedies such as The Big Bang Theory and the drama Elementary — will boost programming on other nights, CBS Corp. Chairman Les Moonves told the Associated Press.

"Anytime you have an opportunity to program more NFL football — especially if it's in prime time, especially when it's on a highly viewed night like Thursday night — is something that would be attractive to any television network," said McManus.

He said the NFL will be getting "an enormous amount of promotion and branding on the CBS assets — CBS television network, Showtime, CBS Interactive, CBS Radio. One of the most important elements to the NFL was how we are going to promote this ... and our plan is extremely aggressive."

CBS has produced the AFC package in recent years but will now have the opportunity to show more games in NFC markets, including such large population centers as Philadelphia, Dallas, Washington, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta and Chicago.

The new package consists of 14 contests (Weeks 2 through 12 and Weeks 14 through 16) on Thursdays and a Saturday doubleheader in Week 16, the penultimate weekend of the regular-season schedule. CBS' Week 13 Thursday game is due to fall in the 12:30 p.m. ET time slot in Detroit this year.

The quality of Thursday games has often been subpar, generally a function of the teams playing on short turnarounds but also because NFL Network suffered from poor matchups as it adhered to a policy of granting teams like the Jaguars, Browns and others at least one prime-time slot during the season.

"Our goal is to bring these games to more fans on broadcast television with unprecedented promotion and visibility," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement.

Contributing: Nate Davis, Tom Pelissero

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