For years, fans of the National Football League have been hoping to have the day after the Super Bowl made an official holiday.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hinted that this wish from fans could happen if he gets his way.
What Happened: The National Football League recently enjoyed setting records at the 2024 NFL Draft with the city of Detroit helping set new day one and overall draft weekend records of 275,000 and 775,000 people, respectively.
While speaking on "The Pat McAfee Show" Friday during the NFL Draft, Goodell was asked his thoughts about the current NFL season structure.
Goodell said he isn't a fan of the preseason games and would prefer to have an 18-game schedule for NFL teams. The current schedule has teams playing three preseason games and 17 regular season games.
"I think we're good at 17 now. But listen, we're looking at how we continue," Goodell said.
One of the comments made by Goodell when discussing the potential change to the NFL schedule was to have the Super Bowl moved back a week, which would put it in alignment with the Presidents' Day weekend.
Presidents’ Day, which honors U.S. presidents including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln who have February birthdays, falls on the third Monday of February annually. The date is a federal holiday and also sees major U.S. stock exchanges closed.
By moving the Super Bowl to the Sunday of Presidents' Day Weekend, many NFL fans and viewers of the game would have the day following the NFL championship off of work.
A move would have to be approved by the NFL Players Association. The league and Players Association previously made changes to the 16-game regular season to 17 games and eliminated a preseason game from the previous annual total of four. An agreement was also reached on expanding the playoff field from 12 teams to 14 teams, which added two additional postseason games each season.
Related Link: NFL Sticks With Exclusive Streaming, But What About The Super Bowl? ‘We Have To Fish Where The Fish Are’
Why It's Important: Having an extra NFL game and the Super Bowl as part of a holiday weekend are items that could help companies with media deals with the NFL and sportsbooks.
The company with rights to the Super Bowl could charge more for advertisements late in the game as viewership might not drop later in the game due to anyone going to bed to wake up for work the next morning.
Last year's Super Bowl (Super Bowl LVIII) hit a modern-day viewership record with an average of 123.4 million viewers across network and streaming platforms owned by Paramount Global PARAPARAA. The game was watched by a total of 202.4 million people, which was up 10% year-over-year.
The locations and dates have already been announced for the next three Super Bowls. The media partners for the next 10 Super Bowls have also been announced with Fox Corporation FOXFOXA set to air Super Bowl LVIX in 2025.
Based on needing approval for the changes, it could be several years before the Super Bowl falls on a holiday weekend, but Goodell's comments could be a positive step in the right direction of giving fans one of the most requested items in sports.
A 2023 survey from the Workforce Institute said 18.1 million employees were expected to miss work the day after last year's Super Bowl.
Furthermore, workforce productivity is expected to drop by more than $5 billion in the week of and the day after the Super Bowl, according to a study from Sportsbook Review.
There have been petitions over the years to move the Super Bowl to a Saturday. More than two dozen petitions have been made on Change.org since 2017, according to USA Today. One recent petition to move the game to Saturday generated over 144,000 signatures.
One proposal also suggested that Presidents' Day, which is a federal holiday, should come the day after the Super Bowl.
“The reason we haven’t done it in the past is simply just from an audience standpoint. The audiences on Sunday night are so much larger,” Goodell said in 2018. “Fans want to have the best opportunity to be able to see the game and we want to give that to them, so Sunday night is a better night.”
A survey of Benzinga social media followers asked if the day after the Super Bowl should be a holiday revealed 57.9% on X (formerly known as Twitter) selected yes and 60% on LinkedIn said yes, suggesting more than half of the country would welcome the idea Goodell is ready to propose.
Photo: Shutterstock
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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