NFL Addresses Taylor Swift Conspiracy Theory And Other Scheduling Quirks

There's a viral conspiracy theory about the NFL schedule released Wednesday night that the league scheduled the Kansas City Chiefs visit to the Buffalo Bills on Nov. 17 in conjunction with Taylor Swift concert dates in nearby Toronto.

Crazy right?

Well, not quite right. But not far off, either.

"One thing we didn't consider is I saw a lot of conspiracy theorists talking about Kansas City at Buffalo in the middle of the season right when Taylor's playing Toronto," said Mike North, who helped author the schedule as the league's vice president for broadcast planning.

"The one definitely did not hit our radar screen."

Swift, in case you missed it, has been in a fairly well publicized relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. When she showed up to Chiefs games, including the Super Bowl, she got a lot of attention.

A lot.

And the NFL leaned into that attention as a way to perhaps grow its fan base. But the Buffalo game, which falls on an off day for the Swift concert tour while she plays six surrounding dates at the Rogers Centre in Toronto was not a consideration.

Amazingly, that doesn't mean the NFL didn't consider Swift's concert tour in planning games with the Chiefs.

"We certainly considered the tour dates that hit NFL stadiums," North said. "I think she hits Miami and maybe New Orleans, Indy. We certainly considered those.

LONDON - Inside the stadium prior to the NFL match between the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on October 2, 2022. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

International Games No Longer Lead to Byes

Years ago when the NFL first started playing games abroad – predominantly in London – teams that made the long trip usually requested and received a bye the next week.

That is no longer the case because teams simply don't want it anymore.

"When we first started doing these international games, what, almost 20 years ago now, they were outside the norm and were challenges for us all," North said. "And the bye coming back seemed like a must-have. It was really only after a couple of years where teams started to realize that if you're playing in the afternoon in Europe, you're playing in the morning over here in the States.

"Quite often you're getting back to your airport, getting back to your facility maybe even earlier than, for an east coast team, if you were playing a game on the west coast. They're back in the building from a London game, earlier than from a game in Seattle."

That prompted clubs to ask to play the following week rather than volunteer for their bye. Most instead requested a home game following the international game.

"The majority of our clubs are looking at these international games as truly routine," North said.

That's obviously good news for the NFL as it continues to consider expansion into Europe in the coming decade or two. 

Brady Broadcast Restrictions In Future?

The fact Tom Brady is slated to join FOX as its lead NFL game analyst has brought up the possibility of conflict of interest because he's also signed a deal to become a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders.

And some teams may balk at having another team's minority owner getting inside information on them via production meetings or attendance to otherwise closed practices.

"Right now, Tom’s not an owner of the Raiders, and as we go into this year, Tom’s able to call any game on the schedule," NFL Executive Vice President, Media Distribution, Hans Schroeder said Thursday.

Great. Settled.

Except it's not because Brady may eventually be approved for the ownership stake he and Raiders owner Mark Davis agreed to. Then what?

Will he be unable to serve as an analyst anymore? Or will Brady have to somehow agree to stop his pursuit of the Raiders' ownership stake?

The guess here is the NFL will try to find a compromise.

League Clarifies Christmas Game Plans

The NFL is saying there were "a lot of bids" for the chance to broadcast or stream Christmas Day games.

This year the NFL gave Netflix its two games on the holiday. And by "give," I mean sold to the tune of about $300 million, per sources.

Netflix signed a three-year deal with the NFL and after streaming two games this year, will broadcast one in each of the next two years.

The reason for only one game those years is because next year Christmas falls on Thursday. And Thursday has belonged to Amazon Prime the past couple of seasons.

"Amazon will have their traditional Thursday night game in prime time on Christmas next year, Schroeder said. "We'll have another game, obviously on Netflix, in the afternoon. And Netflix will have another game the year after that.

"We'll how we think about ‘25 to certainly inform how we go into."

NFL Believes Jets "Owed Us'

The Jets play six prime time games the first 11 weeks of the season and that is reportedly an unprecedented amount of national attention. The NFL gets that.

But the league believes the Jets need to pay up for the disappointment of Aaron Rodgers promising big ratings last year before falling to injury that turned the Jets into a middling team.

"That's an awful lot of prime time games early in the season but obviously feel like, you know, the Jets kind of owe us one," North said. "We had this conversation a year ago and we were all, all of us, all in on the Jets."

That put the Jets on a lot last year and it didn't work out when Rodgers ruptured his Achilles on the fourth play of the season. 

But he's baaaack.

"Feel like we can run it back," said North, who added all the league's broadcast partners told the NFL the return of Rodgers was a key story line for them early in the season.