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The NFL repeatedly has said that it plans to play all 2020 regular-season games. The league hasnt said much about its plans to proceed, or not, with preseason games.
Teams are beginning to fill that void, setting specific dates and times for preseason games that were unveiled softly last week, as part of the announcement of the regular-season schedule.
With so many questions unanswered for the regular season, even more questions exist as to the preseason. On one hand, even if fans arent present, the process of playing practice games in a fan-free environment will help prepare the various teams for the games that count. On the other hand, for the games that wont be nationally televised, the cost of playing the games may outweigh the benefit.
Given the thirst for sports generally and football specifically, its possible that the league will expand the slate of nationally-televised preseason games, giving the networks sports content to broadcast and giving every team at least one true preseason game before the season commences. Whether and to what extent the networks would pay more for that content remains to be seen; possibly, those extra games would be made available on Amazon Prime or some other streaming option that the league would monetize without relying on a model driven by ad sales, which may be shrinking significantly over the short term.
Regardless, the preseason is due to begin in fewer than three months. The clock as to those games necessarily is ticking more loudly than the clock as to the regular-season games.
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Teams begin announcing dates and times for preseason games - NBCSports.com
