Bob Costas, Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth will be in a stadium Sunday night, as per usual, for NBC's NFL telecast. Producer Fred Gaudelli and director Drew Esocoff will be in their normal perch, in the production truck.
They, and the rest of the NBC crew may be the only people at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, as the scheduled game between the Eagles and the Vikings was postponed Sunday in advance of an expected blizzard in Philadelphia and the rest of the Northeast.
The game was moved to Tuesday night, and will air nationally at 8 p.m ET. Though the league cited uncertainty of the extent of the storm and what could follow, adding that a winter storm warning is in effect for the area until 1 p.m. Monday, the NFL delayed the Eagles-Vikings game 48 hours, rather than moving the game to Monday night, when it would have clashed with an attractive previously scheduled New Orleans-Atlanta showdown on ESPN.
Two weeks ago, the Vikings-Giants game was pushed to Monday night after snow fell through the roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis. However, that game was a regional contest on FOX, and aired only in primary and secondary markets of the two teams. Two nationally televised games' audiences would unquestionably blunt each other, hence the move of the Eagles-Vikings game to Tuesday.
The move will snap a 15-week streak for NBC of airing the most popular program of the evening, namely its "Sunday Night Football" telecast, which frequently tops the Nielsen ratings for the entire week. NBC announced Sunday that its pregame show, "Football Night in America," would air as scheduled at 7 p.m. ET, but would expand by 15 minutes to 8:30. Tuesday's game will not have a pregame show.
In the absence of football, NBC announced that it will re-air a holiday themed episode of its "Minute To Win It" game show, followed by a repeat of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit". in the Eastern and Central time zones, with three hours of "Minute to Win It" followed by "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit".
Vikings-Eagles Postponement Lands NBC in Snowdrift
Dec 26, 2010 – 3:45 PM
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