Last April, NFL Network put its daily morning show, NFL AM, on what turned out to be a permanent hiatus. As we begin the march into the 2016 NFL season, NFL Network is launching a new show to fill that slot, and one of the hosts will reportedly be a very familiar name to NFL fans – Fox Sports NFL insider Peter Schrager.

The Sports Business Journal broke the news of the new show on Monday morning, which will be called Good Morning Football and will be hosted by Schrager, NBC’s Kay Adams, Kyle Brandt of The Jim Rome Show, and ex-NFL receiver Nate Burleson. It’ll be produced by Michael Davies (yes, of the Men in Blazers), and be filmed in New York at CBS’s studios.

Davies noted that the three-hour show will air from 7 AM to 10 AM, while also noting the “fun” and “humor” that would be involved.

“We want to have fun with it and show footage that other people aren’t showing,” said Davies, executive producer of the show and president of Embassy Row. “Finding humor is going to be part of the show.”

[…]

“The real job for me as a producer is to make content that becomes famous,” Davies said. “My object is to have what’s said on our air between 7-10 a.m. resonate all over the media. That’s the benchmark of success. Can we make what is said on the show resonate beyond the network?”

Jordan Levin of the NFL, who was hired last June as the league’s first chief content officer, talked about why NFL AM failed – mainly because it was produced and aired live from the west coast at 4 AM.

“The network was ambitious with its former morning program, and part of that ambition was to do a live morning show from the West Coast,” said Jordan Levin, chief content officer, NFL Media. “There’s an energy to morning programming. The challenge is compounded when you have people who are literally doing the show in the middle of the night. You can feel and sense that morning energy is a little off. It isn’t connecting.”

Before you roll your eyes and move on, I actually think NFL Network could have something here. MLB Network has experienced some success with their offseason morning show Hot Stove and their in-season morning show MLB Central, and both blend humor with news and analysis. Given that your weekday morning sports TV is usually limited to SportsCenter, hot take central, or a variety of radio simulcasts, having another option could definitely be a good thing for the football fan out there.

I’m also curious as to whether or not everything Schrager, the biggest name involved with the new show, does will move over to NFL Network and away from Fox. Following the departure of Mike Garafolo (also to NFL Network) earlier this year, Schrager was the network’s most prominent NFL insider other than Jay Glazer, and he also hosts a popular podcast for Fox. I’m sure NFL Network would love to pick up that work in addition to Schrager’s newly minted morning host duties, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

[Sports Business Journal]

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.

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