You'll get all your regularly scheduled playoff games this season, you'll just have to put in the legwork to, you know, change the channel.
The way you'll watch the 2014-15 NFL playoffs has just been altered slightly. The first significant piece of news is that ESPN will televise one of the Wild Card playoff games in January 2015. It's a noteworthy announcement for the sports network, given that they've never broadcast an NFL playoff game in the company's 35-year history.
ESPN and the NFL reached an eight-year contract extension back in 2011 for the Monday Night Football package. That agreement gives the NFL an option to air postseason Wild Card playoff games, according to the release. It's unclear if that agreement also gives the option for further playoff games down the road.
Local markets will still get games on their local affiliates simulcast for said ESPN game.
The other big announcement comes from NBC, which will carry the Super Bowl this upcoming season. In addition to that, NBC will be getting one of the Divisional Round playoff games, the first time they're getting one of those since the Sunday Night Football deal was signed in 2006. It's also the first time since the signing of that deal that NBC has had three playoff games, as they'll broadcast a Wild Card game, a Divisional game and the Super Bowl.
Last season, the Divisional Round games went to CBS and FOX with two games apiece. The Wild Card games gave one to FOX, one to CBS and two to NBC -- obviously with none to ESPN. It sounds like this was a long-time coming for the league, which is trying to maximize the value of those broadcast contracts more and more these days. With the league announcing a broader Thursday Night Football schedule that includes eight games on CBS this year, we may see the formula tweaked even further in the coming years.