In February, NBCSN announced how they would be replacing the Dan Patrick Show with a morning block that included a replay of PFT Live followed by an hour of Sky Sports News.
That schedule debuted on March 1. At the time, Awful Announcing’s Joe Lucia noted that “for a short-term fix, it’s fine, but this isn’t a long-term solution.” Whatever long term plan NBCSN might have had in place likely took a backseat to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, the network appears to be ramping up its efforts leading into the 2020 NFL Draft as they’ve already replaced that Sky Sports News block with a new program dedicated to the NFL.
NBC Sports Football Flex will debut Monday, April 13 at 11 a.m. ET and run for the foreseeable future in that timeslot.
The show will feature the most topical news and analysis from NBC Sports’ digital football content, including The Peter King Podcast, Chris Simms Unbuttoned, PFT PM, Rotoworld Football Podcast, Jac Collinsworth’s Distanced Training: Ready to Get Back in the Game, plus Ahmed Fareed with his unique takes on sports during the quarantine.
The rest of NBCSN’s weekday lineup remains the same. PFT Live will broadcast at 7:00 a.m. EST and replay at 9:00 a.m. NBC Sports Football Flex leads into Lunch Talk Live with Mike Tirico at Noon, followed by The Rich Eisen Show at 1:00 p.m. and then a replay of Tirico’s show at 3:00 p.m. Tirico’s show was announced and debuted just last week as well.
“As the NFL offseason continues and with the draft quickly approaching, we’re excited to create an additional platform for our NBC Sports digital football lineup led by Mike Florio, Peter King, Chris Simms, Jac Collinsworth, Ahmed Fareed and the fantasy football experts at Rotoworld,” said NBC Sports Executive Producer & President of Production Sam Flood, in a press release.
The new show will also be available on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.
As for whether or not that Sky Sports News hour-long show is coming back at some point, that remains to be seen. We are guessing the fallout from the pandemic and whether or not pro sports leagues play according to their normal schedules will have an effect here, just like it will in so many other places.
