The NFL announced Wednesday that NFL Network's popular morning show “Good Morning Football” will move production from New York to Los Angeles by the end of the year, but the big question is whether the current cast will relocate.
As part of that, the show will go on hiatus for the summer starting March 29, with plans to resume later in the summer. It will then be broadcast from the NFL's West Coast Media headquarters in Inglewood, Calif., adjacent to SoFi Stadium, home of the NFL's Los Angeles Rams and Chargers. The property includes his five sound stages and his 5,970 square feet of space for NFL Network's “Total Access” and “Game Day” shows. “Good Morning Football” is expected to air from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET after moving to California, instead of its current three-hour time slot.
The “Good Morning Football” weekday crew currently includes host Jamie Erdahl and analysts Kyle Brandt, Jason McCourty and Peter Schrager, with assistance from Will Selva. Staff members were informed of the move to Los Angeles, which was first reported by Sports Business Journal earlier this week. The main quartet are all based on the East Coast, and all have children, so relocating across the country is a big challenge, both professionally and personally. Officials related to the decision said the NFL asked each member of the cast to continue with the show. The decision came as a surprise to everyone, according to people briefed on the matter.
Studio shows have seen frequent changes in talent, such as “Good Morning Football,'' which previously lost Kay Adams and Nate Burleson. Asked what the expectations are for the show's key on-air members to relocate to Los Angeles, an NFL spokesperson declined to comment. “We are excited to produce 'Good Morning Football' at NFL Media headquarters in Los Angeles, which features world-class studio space and operates directly next to SoFi Stadium,” a spokesperson said.
Kyle Brandt, Jamie Erdahl, Devin McCourty and Peter Schrager appear on “Good Morning Football” set in Munich, Germany in 2022. (NFL Image by Steve Luciano/Associated Press)
The larger context for this is: The Athletic's Andrew Marchand previously reported that the NFL has been looking to divest league-owned media assets for some time. (NFL Media consists of NFL Network, NFL.com, NFL Red Zone, NFL Films, and NFL+.) Assets are in cost reduction mode.
Sports Business Journal reported Wednesday that about 60 NFL league employees accepted a voluntary buyout that was offered to about 200 employees in early January. Fans of “Good Morning Football” were certainly aware that the show wasn't going to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl, instead broadcasting from New York. “Good Morning Football” was launched on August 1, 2016 as his first NFL Network show from New York.
The NFL said it will air an extended two-hour series and be syndicated when the show returns in Los Angeles. The extended series is a separate show with a different title and will not air on NFL Network. Sony Pictures Television presents a new extended series.
The backdrop to all of this is that the NFL is signing new contracts in 2021 with NBC, CBS, ESPN, Fox, and Amazon worth about $110 billion over 11 years, which is more than the value of previous contracts. That's almost twice as much.
Jerry Jones Biography
Publishing News: ESPN senior writer and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Don Van Natta Jr. has signed a deal with Simon & Schuster publisher Avid Reader Press to write a biography of Simon & Schuster. is. Jerry Jones, owner, president, and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys. The working title of the book is “The Star” and it is scheduled to be published in 2026.
Jones, now 81, bought the Cowboys in 1989 for $140 million. Sportico recently valued the franchise at $9.2 billion.
“Probably the most fun part of my career at ESPN was writing a profile of Jerry Jones nearly 10 years ago, in the summer of 2014,” Van Natta said in an email. “There is no single person in the world of sports more powerful, influential, quotable, or capricious than the owner and general manager of the world's most valuable sports franchise. But there's still a lot we don't know about Jerry Jones. Yes, I believe the best way to convey the incredible rise in popularity of the NFL is through the incredible life story of Jerry Jones.”
Big Ten Women's Basketball Title Game on CBS
CBS could get a surprise audience this weekend thanks to the Big Ten's media rights deal. As part of the conference's contracts for college football and basketball, CBS has the rights to the championship game of the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament. The top four seeds in this tournament will be No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Iowa State, No. 3 Indiana State, and No. 4 Michigan State, so if the seeds hold, CBS will The title match will be held on the same network.
The game will be the first time the Big Ten women's basketball title game will be televised. Lisa Byington will advance to the final along with Julian Viani. AJ Ross will work as a sideline reporter. Byington, the Milwaukee Bucks' television voice actor, said he called Clark's games 10 to 12 times while working for the Big Ten Network.
Iowa State's 93-83 win over Ohio State on Sunday, in which Clark passed Pete Maravich for the most points by a combined men's and women's team in Division I history, drew an average viewership on FOX. The highest number of viewers was 4.4 million. The game was the most-watched regular season women's basketball game in 25 years, since CBS aired the UW-Tennessee game on January 10, 1999, drawing 3.88 million viewers.
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Calling Caitlin Clark: Broadcaster talks about the honors and challenges of telling history
sports media podcasts
For those interested in sports media, my colleague Andrew Marchand joined me this week for a 96-minute podcast on a variety of topics.
We discussed the expectations surrounding Tom Brady as an NFL analyst. How will he be judged? What happens when he attends a game as a commentator? What Brady's Arrival Means for Greg Olsen. And whether being No. 2 at Fox is a better job than being the lead analyst on “Thursday Night Football.” You can also hear a conversation about Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving NBC for Amazon Prime Video and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports. Clark's impact on the NCAA Tournament and his WNBA. more.
You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more.
(Good Morning Football logo photo: Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
