The NFL will release its 2024 regular season schedule on Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST, officially revealing the 272-game slate spanning 18 weeks to determine seeding in the playoffs. Aside from a variety of prime-time matchups in the United States, the league will once again present five international games – three in London, England; one in São Paulo, Brazil and one in Munich, Germany. At the moment, the only complete matchup that has been revealed is for the Week 1 game in Brazil, which will be an NFC showdown between the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles. Sean Pendergast and Seth Payne reacted in real time to the announcement that the Baltimore Ravens would open the NFL season against the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday, Sept. 5, a game that some people speculated would include the Houston Texans.

There is excitement surrounding the schedule release each year, underscored by a 2023 regular season campaign in which games averaged 17.9 million viewers, a 7% year-over-year increase and the best figure since 2015. Tradition grants the defending Super Bowl champions the Thursday night opening matchup that generally includes recognizing the preceding triumph as the team looks to remain at the top of the NFL world. Pendergast described the Ravens being subjected to watching the Chiefs raise a banner, especially when they were defeated in the AFC Championship Game, represents a form of punishment.

“There’s a Wild Card element to the first game of the season too, with all due respect to Andy Reid,” Payne said on Monday’s edition of Payne & Pendergast on SportsRadio 610. “Sometimes there’s wrinkles and there’s things that can happen, especially when you’re the Texans and you haven’t had this three wide receiver formidability that you can unleash some stuff that teams aren’t ready for. I wouldn’t have been scared of it.”

Pendergast acknowledged that Texans fans have had to wait until the night of the schedule release to discover the team’s array of games. The team is expected to contend for a playoff spot this year with quarterback and reigning NFL offensive rookie of the year C.J. Stroud, along with new offensive players in Stefon Diggs and Joe Mixon. Pendergast conjectures that the team will either be granted a Thanksgiving Day matchup against the Dallas Cowboys or one of the international games in London.

“I like the idea of the London game,” Payne said later in the show. “I don’t like it in terms of, for one, it’s not a prime time game. It’s the opposite of a prime time game; they play at like 5 a.m. local. I’m exaggerating there obviously, but it is. It’s a prelude to the rest of the NFL action for the day, so that part’s kind of fun and cool, but it’s not like the schedule makers look at it and think, ‘Ooh, here’s a chance to get C.J. Stroud in front of more eyeballs on national television.’”

NFL Network televised four of the five international games last year and accumulated an average of 5.8 million viewers. The league-owned television entity is currently distributed to approximately 50 million homes. Part of the rationale behind Pendergast’s projection is that the team has road games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings, both of which have been revealed to be home teams for two of the three games taking place in London. The Jaguars also played in London last year during which ESPN+ and Disney+ presented the Toy Story Funday Football broadcast. This alternate presentation featuring real-time animation and commentary accounted for the most-viewed event in ESPN+ history, along with the biggest live event to date on Disney+.

“You’re right,” Pendergast said, concurring with Payne. “For TV, it’s not a marquee TV event. I would say they haven’t even gone out of their way to make sure that they’re sending over the best teams just so there’s more appeal to the live audience in those. Those live audiences don’t care; they’re just, ‘It’s American football. Let’s go!’”

‘Sports Rap Radio’ in Detroit is still on its way, just a few weeks after it was initially scheduled to launch. The station, which will feature a lineup of all-Black hosts, was initially set to launch on May 16, however, it has now been pushed back to begin on Monday June 3.

Fox Sports Radio host Rob Parker and a group, which includes former NBA player BJ Armstrong, will air the programming on WXYT 1270 AM through an LMA with Audacy who owns the signal. Parker posted on his X account, “Technical issues got us. Sports Rap Radio IS coming. Be patient. We want to start out of the gate right.”

The lineup for the station was announced on April 30 and will feature Armstrong hosting solo from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by midday show The Bad Boys with Martin Weiss and JR Gamble. Lindsey Hunter, a retired Pistons guard and member of the 2004 NBA championship team, will team up with Detroit native Montezz Allen to co-host “The Pitbulls” afternoon drive show from 3-7 p.m. That will lead into Parker’s national show, The Odd Couple, with Chris Broussard until 10 p.m.

Netflix is reportedly in discussions with the National Football League about exclusively broadcasting two Christmas Day NFL games, something that is being surmised as a reason behind the delayed release of the NFL schedule. Andy “Dirt” Johnson and Brandon Sprague discussed the latest developments with this story and how consumption habits continue to be altered through cord cutting and the rise of digital media through streaming.

Johnson is supportive of the effort, saying he has Netflix and surmises that the quality will be great. In his remarks, he reminded listeners that Netflix will be streaming a bout between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson on July 20. As a whole, he is looking forward to what Netflix is doing – which recently included The Roast of Tom Brady – as it engages in these forays into the sports media industry.

“They’re doing more live content is kind of the point,” Sprague said on Friday’s edition of the Dirt & Sprague morning show on 1080 The Fan. “People are kind of upset by this, and I’m kind of confused by it. So, you might say, ‘It should be on standard cable,’ right? NBC, ABC, CBS, rabbit ears to cable boxes, whatever. I kind of feel like we’re at a place where most people who are consuming TV content have Netflix.”

While Netflix is among the most widely used media platforms worldwide, Johnson expressed a sentiment of pause over if it will be able to captivate viewers and grow interest in sports. This discourse came out of Johnson averring that the Full Swing docuseries was rudimentary at points in that it was explaining the definitions behind golf terminology such as a bogey, par and cut.

“I don’t know how much of that is curtailed to the actual sports fan more so of just people like watching documentaries and you’re finding fans who aren’t normally fans of the sport who just happen to be on Netflix who then hopefully end up watching the sport,” Johnson said. “That’s where I don’t know how much of a crossover you have between sports fans and Netflix.”

The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery recently revealed that they will be creating a bundle with the Disney+, Hulu and Max streaming services to be released this summer. Both companies will also be part of a joint streaming venture that includes FOX Corporation led by chief executive officer Pete Distad. While the offering is scheduled to debut in the fall, the entity is facing an antitrust lawsuit from fuboTV that argues the joint streaming venture would control at least 54% of U.S. sports rights. A hearing date for the preliminary injunction within this antitrust lawsuit has been scheduled for August 7.

“I don’t know what to do, and I feel like I have double purchases of these streams that are existing, and then it’s, ‘Hey, we’ve partnered,’” Sprague said. “They’re basically reinventing cable every week.”

Johnson and Sprague then listed all of the streaming services those in the Portland area need to watch sports, enumerating a total of seven to eight depending on if the Trail Blazers release its own proprietary streaming service next year. Although there is a risk that sports fans could become unwilling to search for games and neglect to watch, Johnson is cognizant of the fact that the NFL could be somewhat immune. Last year, the league garnered an average of 28.7 million across its slate of three games on Christmas Day, a 29% year-over-year increase. Additionally, the Christmas Eve game between the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins averaged 31.5 million viewers on FOX. 

During the NFL postseason, an exclusive Wild Card round game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins presented on Peacock secured an average minute audience of 23 million, the most-streamed event in U.S. history. A related study from Antenna found that Peacock retained 71% of subscribers whose sign-ups were attributed to the exclusive contest seven weeks later. Amazon Prime Video will reportedly stream an NFL Wild Card game for the first time this season, coming off an average of approximately 11.9 million viewers across its 16-game slate of Thursday Night Football games.

“The NFL doesn’t really care about this either way though,” Johnson said, referring to viewership of potential games through Netflix on Christmas Day. “Netflix is throwing a butt-ton of cash at them, and they’re going to say, ‘Sure, here you go. Take two Christmas Day games.’ They don’t care if they get 12 million; 19 million; 21 million – they’re just taking the money and running and laughing.”