Packer Exhibition Games

[John L]

I thought some, if not all Green Bay Packer exhibition Football games were on WTMJ-TV this year.

Looking at WVTV's the CW18 website shows that on Saturday, August 16th the Packers vs. SF 49ers at 8:00pm on WVTV, ch. 18.  Say what?

It just occured to me that the World Olympics from Beijing, China will be underway. Perhaps the Journal Broadcast co. WTMJ-TV made some agreement with Sinclair WVTV to air the game?

-John L.

[Tom Snyder]

NBC being in the middle of Olympic coverage that weekend...actually for three weeks in August...forces TMJ into an interesting dilemma, as Packer football is always a ratings winner. But it IS pre-season, after all.  

The 11th is an ESPN game, and channel 12 usually gets the local rights to those.   The August 16th game is definitely going to CW18.  Not sure about the August 22nd

[mrschimpf]

It makes sense...the last time this happened in 2004, WPXE aired the Packer games while WTMJ had the Olympics; at that time, Pax and NBC had that marketing agreement where Channel 4 pretty much ran WPXE and had their newscasts repeated on that station, along with giving them "Martha Stewart Living".

The next year the marketing agreement was broken when Pax became i (and then Ion), and now WTMJ has to go to another station (aka not one of their bitter rivals) because they can't keep the games 'in-house'. I remember the 2004 games only because of WPXE's abysmal analog signal which caused all the players to look like they were running in slow motion and everything had a blur effect on the screen. I don't that'll happen with 18 this time.

The game on the 22nd has also showed up on their page now, so they are airing both games with the 49ers and Broncos.

[Jimboy]

The pre-season games should be in HD this year. I'm not sure about the first one but the two games on CW18 are scheduled to air in HD. The last one on TMJ4 should be as well.

Go Pack!

[Tom Snyder]

So who is the "state network" going to get all the HD cameras and production truck from?

[Jimboy]

I don't have that information since it's not our production. Do you have a truck to offer?

[LoadStar]

So who is the "state network" going to get all the HD cameras and production truck from?

The packers for the last two years have contracted with CBS Sports to produce their pre-season games. (It's fairly obvious - the graphics are the normal CBS Sports package, with the "eye" logo replaced with the Green Bay Packer G logo.)

[Tom Snyder]

Do you have a truck to offer?

I *wish* I had enough money to afford one those bad boys!

[John L]

The pre-season games should be in HD this year. I'm not sure about the first one but the two games on CW18 are scheduled to air in HD. The last one on TMJ4 should be as well.

Go Pack!

This is a Great News about WVTV, Ch. 18 airing the Packer exhibition games in High Definition.  Perhaps at times during the Packer games WVTV could run some promos of upcoming shows offered by The CW Network to educate people that WVTV is a network station as well and offer The CW programs.

[basshive]

I really need an antenna

[Tom Snyder]

The Packers report that all three of the locally produced pre-season games will be produced in HD.

http://www.packers.com/news/releases/2008/08/04/1/

[AndrewP]

OK, but what about Jets?

Will ch. 58 will become a Brett Jet ch?
Ratings will be huge.
Can somebody from ch. 58 get us a clue on that?
If ch 58 is not interested then I will resub to Sunday Ticket.
Rodgers is not my guy right now.
And Packers management is just stupid.

[Tom Snyder]

The NFL market-by-market broadcast schedule is determined by the networks each week based on some pretty basic principals, all designed to maximize audience on both a national, and a local basis.  I have a feeling that their formula will result in us seeing a lot of Brett this year, especially if the Jets do what the oddsmakers say they're going to do... Before Brett they were 15 to one to win the AFC championship. After the trade announcement they went to 5 and 1. You'll see a lot of their late season games optioned to later starts, and Monday/Sunday/Thursday nights.

If we were fortunate enough to have gotten a waiver from 58, of course, we'd be seeing every single game on CBSE, as the that's the home market station for the Jets.

That said, the schedule as it stands now shows 2 national night games. Two late games with a 50/50 chance of being shown here. The last six games are still TBA... a good sign. The remaining games are noon starts, and depending on what else CBS is offering may get on the Milwaukee schedule.

[StarvingForHDTV]

Thank you for the nice explanation Tom.  This sounds promising.

[Tom Snyder]

You can actually get complete maps of what games are being shown in the entire country the week before the games at http://www.the506.com/nflmaps/    No maps are there yet for week 1 2008, but you can see how it works by viewing last year's maps at http://www.the506.com/nflmaps/2007.html