NEW YORK, N.Y. – If you live anywhere near the five boroughs and plan to watch football today, the NFL has a cruel sense of humor.
Thanks to regional broadcast rules, you’re locked into watching two last-place teams — the 3–12 Jets and the 2–13 Giants — stumble through another Sunday of misery.
At 1 p.m. on FOX, the Jets host the New England Patriots in what might generously be called a “grudge match,” though it’s really more of a competition for who can punt more often and miss every opportunity to convert third downs and score touchdowns.
Then, at 4:05 p.m., on CBS, the Giants take their 2–13 record on the road to Las Vegas to face the Raiders, who must be wondering how they ended up as the one of the closing acts for this tragedy of errors.
This is all part of the NFL’s broadcasting playbook — one that guarantees you’ll always get your local teams on free TV, even when they’re barely watchable. The networks pay billions for those rights, and in exchange, the league enforces “anti-siphoning” rules that block out-of-market games in your area. Translation: no, you can’t switch to the 49ers or Chiefs. You’re getting the Giants and Jets, like it or not.
The system keeps local stations happy — they rake in ad money and local ratings even when the product on the field looks more like preseason or high school football. And it keeps fans tied to their teams, for better or (mostly) worse. The NFL knows that loyalty is built through routine, even when that routine involves sighing through another three-and-out.
So while the rest of the country enjoys games with playoff stakes, New York viewers get a back-to-back double feature of futility. The NFL calls it market protection. Fans call it punishment.
Both the Jets and Giants sit dead last in their divisions, yet their games still dominate local TV, proving that in New York, bad football is mandatory viewing.