American football league the NFL has confirmed it is investigating whether to auction broadcast rights for a new set of regular-season games on Thursday evenings, according to the Reuters news agency.
Steve Bornstein, president and chief executive of the league’s pay-television channel, NFL Network, and NFL executive vice-president of media, said that discussions were still at an early stage and there was no guarantee a decision would be made to proceed with such a plan.
The NFL has previously played down reports of adding further games on what is one of the US television market’s most competitive evenings.
NFL Network currently broadcasts 13 Thursday night games per season.
“There is no way that this channel won't have live games,” Bornstein said. “It has great content and gives us an amazing platform to expand into other areas.”
Bornstein said that the league had heard from potential bidders for a possible new package of games, but would not name them. He added that a new package would be unlikely to result in two games being scheduled on one Thursday evening.