Doubleheader (television)

A doubleheader is a term used by television networks to refer to two games involving the same sport that are shown back-to-back on the same network, even though the events do not involve the same two teams (three such games may be referred to as a tripleheader, this scenario occurring most frequently in regard to basketball). A doubleheader purposely coincides with a league's scheduling of "early" and "late" games. In North America, games usually start at the same time period in different time zones (Eastern and Pacific).

National Football League (NFL) games usually start around 1:00 p.m. local time, creating a 1:00/4:00 p.m. doubleheader in the Eastern Time Zone and a 10:00 a.m./1:00 p.m. doubleheader in the Pacific Time Zone.

The two networks that hold the rights to broadcast NFL games on Sunday afternoons – Fox and CBS – both typically air doubleheaders during the regular season (with the other network only being permitted to broadcast one game in a specific market; each network is given eight doubleheaders to broadcast during the season, and both networks are given doubleheaders during the final week of the season in order for games with playoff implications to have the most exposure), with restrictions applying to some markets in which the local team is playing at home that week. When combined with the Sunday night game on NBC, this creates a tripleheader (as was sometimes advertised by the league's radio partner, Westwood One, which carried three games in a tripleheader format).

Since 2006, Week 1 of the NFL regular season also features a doubleheader on Monday Night Football (which moved from ABC to ESPN concurrent with the change), with the late-evening game involving two West Coast teams. This alleviates a quirk in the NFL television contract where there is no Monday game in the final week of the regular season in order to allow all playoff teams to have an equal number of days off between the final regular season and first playoff game.

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