NFL Combine moving to primetime television is a bit much

The NFL wants you to watch everything they do no matter how big, small, or boring it is. Today the league announced that the NFL Combine is going “primetime”.

There is a reason that the league holds the annual NFL Combine in Indianapolis and that reason is to get teams a look at the upcoming draft prospects. A few years back the NFL decided to televise more than just the highlights making the event a live coverage event. Now they want more.

Next year the NFL Combine will be moving to primetime where the NFL believes more people will watch and ratings will be higher. The combine is a widely viewed event but comes nowhere near the coverage that the NFL Draft receives.

The NFL saw this years ago when the moved the NFL Draft from a Saturday and Sunday two day event to a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday three day event. Now they are doing the same with the Combine.

The leagues “underwear olympics” was not so long ago a place for the media and the team executives to congregate to get their looks at 40 yard times and bench presses but the NFL being the NFL thought that maybe the general public should be able to watch. Media passes were thrown out to anyone with a website that wanted them. As hard as they try the combine will not reach the level of the draft.

Not all of the combine will be televised in primetime. The skilled positions will be televised which should make for an entertaining event when top quarterbacks opt not throw or a receiver opts not run drills.

It may not be a good idea or fair to the athletes participating now that they will have to run their drills later in the evening but let us be real, it really isn’t about the players when there is a wallet open.