NFL Network continues to add live programming on NFL Sundays. The channel will announce that it will add yet another show to its live NFL GameDay brand when the season kicks off in earnest on Sunday, September 7.

NFL Network has already expanded the Sunday morning pregame show to the early morning hours at 7 a.m. ET with GameDay First hosted by Melissa Stark with analysts Sterling Sharpe and Shaun O’Hara. And it still airs GameDay Morning at 9 a.m. with network original Rich Eisen as host with a merry band of analysts including Steve Mariucci, Michael Irvin and Warren Sapp.

In the past, NFL Network aired a simulcast of SiriusXM NFL Radio between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. posting real-time game statistics for fantasy players. That will change this season.

Awful Announcing has learned that NFL GameDay’s brand now expands to Sunday afternoons with NFL GameDay Live which will be a 6½ hour program hosted by Entertainment Tonight anchor Kevin Frazier and current NFL Total Access co-host Dan Hellie. They’ll be joined by former NFL on Fox analysts Brian Billick and Heath Evans as well as LaDanian Tomlinson and former scout Daniel Jeremiah.

The show will air in-game highlights, but unlike NFL RedZone and DirecTV’s Red Zone Channel, NFL GameDay Live will not be able to cut in live. It will be able to show highlights once a score or something big has happened. The show will do this for all of the Sunday afternoon games airing at 1 p.m. and in the late 4 p.m. and 4:25 p.m. windows.

NFL GameDay Live will also air live press conferences and conduct one-on-one interviews with players and coaches as well as live reports from the day’s game sites.

Will the live program cannibalize the broadcasts from its league partners? Time will tell. The NFL has been careful not to release numbers for NFL RedZone and we don’t know the actual viewership of DirecTV’s Red Zone Channel, but one has to think they do subtract some viewership from the actual live game windows.

However, the NFL believes its product is strong enough to withstand the live cut-ins from the two Red Zones and now in-game highlights from GameDay Live. It will be interesting to see how this program does and if it can garner a loyal audience.

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.