Thursday Night Football | |
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The logo for Thursday Night Football, beginning with the 2014 NFL season
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Also known as | 'Run to the Playoffs' |
Genre | NFL football telecasts |
Presented by |
Jim Nantz Phil Simms Tracy Wolfson James Brown Bill Cowher Deion Sanders Rich Eisen Marshall Faulk Steve Mariucci Michael Irvin Kevin Harlan Rich Gannon Al Michaels Cris Collinsworth Heather Cox Bob Costas Tony Dungy Rodney Harrison, Mike Tirico Doug Flutie |
Theme music composer | Helmut VonLichten (CBS) Jimmy Greco (NBC) |
Opening theme | "TNF 32" (CBS) "Can’t Hold Us Down" (NBC) |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons |
11 (NFL Network seasons) |
No. of episodes | 57 (games) |
Production | |
Location(s) |
Various NFL stadiums (game telecasts, pregame, halftime and postgame shows) |
Camera setup | Multi-camera |
Running time | 180 minutes or until game ends |
Production company(s) |
National Football League NFL Network (2006–present) CBS Sports (2014–present) NBC Sports (2016–present) |
Release | |
Original network |
NFL Network (2006–present) CBS (2014–present; select games) NBC (2016–present; select games) Twitter (2016–present; Internet simulcast) |
Picture format |
480i (SDTV), 1080i (HDTV) |
Original release | November 23, 2006 | – present
Chronology | |
Related shows |
NFL on CBS NBC Sunday Night Football |
External links | |
Website |
11 (NFL Network seasons)
3 (CBS seasons)
1 (NBC seasons)
Thursday Night Football is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights, and occasionally on Saturdays in the later portion of the season. Most of the games kick off at 8:25 p.m. Eastern Time.
Debuting on November 23, 2006, the telecasts were originally part of NFL Network's Run to the Playoffs package, which consisted of eight total games broadcast on Thursday and Saturday nights (five on Thursdays, and three on Saturdays, originally branded as Saturday Night Football) during the latter portion of the season. Since 2012, the TNF package has begun during the second week of the NFL season; the NFL Kickoff Game and the Thanksgiving primetime game are both broadcast as part of NBC Sports' Sunday Night Football contract and are not included in Thursday Night Football, although the Thanksgiving primetime game was previously part of the package from 2006 until 2011.
At its launch, the package proved highly controversial mainly due to the relative unavailability of NFL Network at the time; the league used the games as leverage to encourage television providers to carry NFL Network on their basic service tiers, rather than in premium, sports-oriented packages that required subscribers to pay a higher fee; although, as with all other national cable telecasts of NFL games, the league's own regulations require the games to be syndicated to over-the-air television stations in the local markets of the teams. These issues were magnified in 2007, when a game that saw the New England Patriots close out a perfect regular season was simulcast nationally on both CBS and NBC, in addition to NFL Network and the local stations that the game was sold to, following concerns from politicians and other critics.