2014By Brad Gagnon on

In each of the last three years, NBC’s primetime finale flex has gone to a divisional game between two NFC East teams. If that once again happens in 2014, the league’s most popular division will only widen its lead over the rest of the league in terms of national exposure.

Here’s a breakdown of the 2014 prime-time schedule on NBC, ESPN, CBS and NFL Network. The first column reveals how many prime-time games involve at least one team from the division in question, the second shows how often that division gets its own prime-time game (i.e. Giants vs. Eagles or 49ers vs. Seahawks) and the third is the total number of prime-time games played by all four teams in the division.

nfceastprimetime2014

The imbalance in favor of the NFC East is glaring, but not new. All four markets are incredibly strong. Six of the 10 most-watched regular-season broadcasts last year involved the NFC East (five for the Cowboys alone), and two were intra-divisional NFC East games.

But it’s still funny because the NFC West and AFC West have become so much stronger on the field, as evidenced by this breakdown of primetime games per each division’s 2013 win total:

pt2014

About Brad Gagnon

Brad Gagnon has been passionate about both sports and mass media since he was in diapers -- a passion that won't die until he's in them again. Based in Toronto, he's worked as a national NFL blog editor at theScore.com, a producer and writer at theScore Television Network and a host, reporter and play-by-play voice at Rogers TV. His work has also appeared at CBSSports.com, Deadspin, FoxSports.com, The Guardian, The Hockey News and elsewhere at Comeback Media, but his day gig has him covering the NFL nationally for Bleacher Report.

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