The Bucs celebrate beating the Panthers on Dec. 1, 2024. The Bucs celebrate beating the Panthers on Dec. 1, 2024. (Bob Donnan/Imagn Images.)
FoxLeague NetworksNFLBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Once again, the NFL’s late-afternoon overtime rules meant many couldn’t watch an exciting finish. This time around, that came in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Carolina Panthers game. That game went to overtime on a 51-yard field goal from the Bucs’ Chase McLaughlin that sailed through the uprights with zero seconds on the clock. Here’s how Chris Myers called that:

But, as noted there, the overtime wasn’t viewable on NFL RedZone. As long established, RedZone has to sign off when there’s just one afternoon window game left, which involves host Scott Hanson instructing viewers to finish watching the game on their local CBS or Fox affiliate or on the wider out-of-market NFL Sunday Ticket package. In particular situations like this one, though, those options don’t work for many viewers.

If the late game finishing is part of a network doubleheader, that network (Fox or CBS) will usually send it to their other affiliates not initially showing it as “bonus coverage” as they wrap up their own games. But that’s not really possible if it’s on the network that has the singleheader in a given week, as Fox does this week. That’s because three of the five Fox games (and Arizona-Minnesota in particular, which went to most of the country) were in the early window, so those affiliates were airing non-football programming at this point. (This has happened a decent amount over the years, including in 2022.)

Thus, this was mostly only available on the Fox affiliates who were showing it to start, mostly those around Florida, the Carolinas, Atlanta, and Nashville. And the only other way to watch it was with the full Sunday Ticket package, which is much more expensive than RedZone (RedZone is a $10 add-on to Sunday Ticket, but is also available separately through NFL+ Premium and various multichannel video programming distributor add-ons). So that led to a lot of people noting that they couldn’t watch this:

It’s unfortunate for those who wanted to watch this and couldn’t. They did miss quite a finish to an already-odd game. That included a great catch by Carolina’s Adam Thielen, a fumble on an ensuing play (while already in field goal range), and then a game-winning field goal from McLaughlin:

The above suggestion of loosening RedZone rules to stick with a single game that can’t be shown on local affiliates nationally (so primarily a late game from the singleheader network) has some merit. And RedZone rules have been changed before after significant public complaint, particularly in 2019 when the channel (channels at that point: a DirecTV one and a NFL one) was allowed to stay live after 8 p.m. ET as long as at least two games were still running.

RedZone is certainly a way that many people consume football each Sunday, especially with its increased availability outside of Sunday Ticket over the last several years. And a change in this particular rule would reinforce the value of RedZone, and that has merits for the NFL, especially now that they’re now selling it themselves through NFL+ Premium. However, this would provide a further diminishment to the value of Sunday Ticket, so that’s a tradeoff to consider. We’ll see if there’s ever a change along these lines, but if there isn’t, we’ll undoubtedly see this late-afternoon singleheader OT finish many can’t watch happen again.

[Awful Announcing on X]

 

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz