The announcement of the N.F.L.’s opening matchup is meant to be a curtain-raiser for the regular season.
But when this year’s season opener was announced in May, the participants were the ones who raised their eyebrows.
As is the norm, the first game will feature the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. But the schedule makers decided not to pit the team against a storied rival or a vanquished opponent from last season’s playoffs. Instead, Kansas City will open the N.F.L. season on Thursday night against the Detroit Lions, another small-market team.
Their selection was a head-scratcher, even for the Lions. The team won eight of 10 games to end the 2022 season, but Coach Dan Campbell figured the league picked his team, in part, because it would be just competitive enough against a Kansas City team that would be the real TV draw.
“If I’m being frank with you about why they would give us Kansas City, yeah, well, you finished the year a certain way, but they’re also betting on we won’t get” blown out, Campbell said in May.
The opponent's choice showed the N.F.L.’s increasingly analytical approach to creating its 272-game regular-season schedule. The league relied on a balance of instinct, common sense, and computers for over a century in slating games. But seismic shifts in pro football and how it is consumed have complicated matters.
The N.F.L. added an extra game to the season for each team in 2021; the same year, new media deals increased revenues and the number of platforms that broadcast matchups.
Besides inking a seven-year deal with YouTube in December for the rights to stream out-of-market games this season, the league has expanded flexibility to reschedule games to dole out compelling matchups to CBS, Fox, Amazon Prime, NBC, Peacock, ABC, and ESPN. The league has also added games in unusual time slots, including a tripleheader on Christmas Day, a first, a game on Black Friday, and games on…