NFL owners discussed and voted on a proposed change to flex scheduling procedures at the annual meetings in Arizona in March 2023. Ratings had been underwhelming in the first year of “Thursday Night Football” on Amazon’s Prime Video, and the proposed change would allow the league to flex games from Sunday to Thursday night.
It failed by two votes. But that did not stop New York Giants owner John Mara from unloading on the concept.
“To flex a game back to Thursday night, to me, is just abusive,” Mara told reporters then.
He added: “At some point, can we please give some consideration to the people who are coming to our games? People make plans to go to these games weeks and months in advance. And 15 days ahead of time to say, ‘Sorry, folks, that game you were planning on taking your kids to Sunday at 1, now it’s on Thursday night.’ What are we thinking about?”
Giants owner John Mara is not a fan of the TNF flex scheduling proposal.
“To flex a game back to Thursday night to me is just abusive.”
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— The Athletic NFL (@TheAthleticNFL) March 29, 2023
The proposal passed two months later despite Mara’s vocal opposition. And now, for the first time, his hypothetical is a reality. The Los Angeles Chargers face the Denver Broncos on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium. The game initially had been scheduled for a 1:05 p.m. local start on Sunday, Dec. 22. The league announced on Nov. 22 that the game had been flexed to Thursday night. And fans who had been planning to attend the game — some for months in advance, as Mara predicted — were left scrambling to deal with the disruption.
The proposal approved in May 2023 stated any Thursday night flex required 28 days’ notice from the league office. The final item in the resolution stated that the Sunday-to-Thursday flex scheduling would only be in effect for 2023 unless the flex scheduling was not applied that season. It was not. And so, as the resolution stated, the flex scheduling remained in effect for 2024.
The Chargers-Broncos game is the first time it has been enacted.
Chargers fan August Sage said he was planning to attend the game on Dec. 22 with his son, Gabe, who is in the Army and stationed in Kansas. Gabe’s military leave starts on Dec. 20, according to Sage, and he was going to head home to Beaumont, Calif., for the holidays. The timing worked out for father and son to attend the Dec. 22 game together. Sage said he only gets to see his son, at most, twice a year. Now, the game has been flexed to a day before Gabe’s military leave and they will not be attending the game.
“It’s very disappointing,” Sage said.
The NFL did not respond to a request for comment for this story. In March 2023, before the proposal passed, commissioner Roger Goodell said, “There isn’t anybody in any of our organizations that doesn’t put our fans first.”
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Justin Kroepfl said he received tickets to the Dec. 22 game as a birthday gift from his wife, Brittany.
Kroepfl, Brittany and their three kids live in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The couple is originally from San Diego, and Kroepfl said he and his family travel back to Southern California for the holidays each year. They attend a Chargers game if they can swing it. They last attended a game on Jan. 2, 2022, when the Chargers beat the Broncos. Kroepfl said Brittany bought tickets this year for the whole family, including sons Landon (14 years old) and Caleb (10) and daughter Amelia (6).
Landon is a Chargers “diehard,” Kroepfl said.
“He cries after every loss,” Kroepfl added. “He gets that from me.”
Kroepfl said he saw the announcement on Nov. 22. Their flights were slated to leave Idaho on Friday morning, Dec. 20.
“Holiday season, you can’t change flights,” Kroepfl said. “We’re a family of five, so it’s not exactly the cheapest or easiest thing to do.”
Brittany was forced to sell the tickets and even that was a hassle. Kroepfl said they bought the tickets on GameTime, a secondary market service, and that site will not let them resell the tickets until the day of the game. Brittany posted on Facebook, and found someone willing to “wait until the day of the game and hope that we were telling the truth,” Kroepfl said. Brittany passed along screenshots of her receipts for confirmation.
Kroepfl’s birthday present was ruined. Landon and his siblings must wait at least another year to see their favorite team.
“They’re huge Charger fans,” Kroepfl said. “So we just had to get them jerseys and stuff for Christmas instead.”
Michael Japser had planned a reunion with high school friends he grew up with in San Diego. The group is spread out now. Four remain in San Diego. But one is in Charlotte, N.C. One is in St. Louis. Another lives in Austin, Texas.
Jasper said the friends try to see a Chargers game every year around Christmas break. The Broncos game, on Dec. 22, “ended up working out great for us,” Jasper said.
The friends discussed the reunion “for months,” according to Jasper. In November, Jasper said he bought seven tickets for the group on Ticketmaster. He also bought two parking passes so the friends could tailgate.
That plan was shattered two days later when the league announced the flex to Thursday night. The out-of-town friends were not arriving until Friday or Saturday. The group in San Diego, including Jasper, could not get off work.
Jasper said he called Ticketmaster. Their response, he said, was that there is a disclaimer on the website indicating the game could be flexed. Jasper said a “tiny little disclaimer … is not enough to justify what they did.”
“This is like consumer abuse, essentially,” Jasper said.
Jasper said he had to sell the tickets in bunches and lost money in the ordeal.
“It was a total bummer,” Jasper said. “This is something that we look forward to months in advance. … For some of my buddies, this was their only time to go to a Charger game, the people that were out of town. This was their only opportunity to go to a Charger game because they’re only in town for a week for Christmas and New Year’s with the family. So they got screwed.”
Chargers fan Carson Trigueiro said he bought three tickets to the game. Trigueiro said he is a law student at USC and the Dec. 22 game fell during his winter break. He made plans to attend the game with two friends, one former college baseball teammate who is in grad school in Minnesota and another childhood friend who lives in Fresno, Calif.
When the flex was announced, Trigueiro said he was stuck with three tickets he could not use. He had already committed to watching his sister play in a basketball game at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Calif. His friend from Minnesota was not arriving until Saturday. His friend from Fresno could not take off work.
Trigueiro bought the tickets on SeatGeek, another secondary market service. He received the tickets Monday morning, and when he talked to The Athletic over the phone Monday afternoon, he said he was still trying to sell them.
“They’re not guys that I get to see too often, just because we’re all in different places and doing different things,” Trigueiro said. “I was looking forward to hanging out with them. And also just kind of being at a game, I’ve been watching every Sunday but have not been able to go just being busy, and I was looking forward to finally getting there. Be loud and be a part of it.”
Chargers fan Mackenzie Logan, who lives in San Diego, had planned for the Dec. 22 game to be a “big old” birthday get-together for her mom, Stefanie.
Stefanie’s birthday is Dec. 22. “The holidays always get in the way of the whole birthday thing for her,” Logan said of her mom. This was a chance for Stefanie to have a true standalone birthday, and 14 family members planned to attend.
Now only seven can make it. Logan said her girlfriend could not take off work.
“It was just the biggest bummer,” Logan said.
The NFL made flex scheduling available for Thursday night games starting in 2023 and this week’s Broncos-Chargers game is the first to get bumped up three days, inconveniencing plenty of fans. (Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)
Broncos fan Greg Wellesley said, “It was kind of a shock” when he found out the tickets, flights and hotel room he booked around a game scheduled for a Sunday was now being played on Thursday.
Wellesley, an eighth-grade social studies teacher in the Denver area, had considered the possibility of a flex when he finalized his travel. Initially, he planned to fly out of Los Angeles late Sunday night, but as he looked at the schedule, he realized the Broncos and Chargers could be candidates to be moved to the “Sunday Night Football” stage.
“So I said, ‘We better extend out a few hours (and leave on Monday) so we’re OK,’” he said. “I wasn’t even thinking that Thursday was a thing.”
The flex back to Thursday required more significant changes, ranging from inconvenient to costly. The game being on Thursday meant taking two days off work, just before school let out for a two-week winter break, a prospect he had hoped to avoid when he originally planned his outbound departure late Friday night.
Wellesley’s scheduled flight out of Los Angeles on Monday is heading to Boston, where he’ll spend the Christmas holiday with his in-laws, so to avoid having to rework those long-cemented plans, he’ll instead be spending the three days following the Broncos’ game in the Los Angeles area.
“It ends up being a few extra hotel nights in L.A., which is a good thing in the sense of an unplanned, extended vacation, but also it’s an expense we weren’t necessarily planning for,” Wellesley said. “So that’s kind of a bummer.”
The Broncos had the option of declining this flex because it will be their second road Thursday night game of the season. The Chargers did not have this same option, according to a person familiar with the scheduling procedure. This will be the Chargers’ first Thursday night game of the season.
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The Broncos relished the opportunity to switch the rest advantage between themselves and their Week 17 opponent, the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals were previously scheduled to play the Cleveland Browns on Thursday, giving Cincinnati the extra days of rest before it hosts Denver on Dec. 28. It will now be the Broncos who get that added rest.
Plus, playing two games in four days is less of a strain when you’re still relatively fresh off your bye week. The Broncos had theirs in Week 14. The Chargers were off way back in Week 5, which preceded their 23-16 win against the Broncos in Denver on Oct. 13.
Broncos coach Sean Payton also isn’t pretending he doesn’t enjoy a national stage.
“If you are wanting to play significant games in December and January, then just tell us where and when,” Payton said.
When asked about the scheduling change in November, Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said, “Whatever’s good for the league.”
Jasper said he and his three friends who still reside in San Diego were able to buy tickets to the Chargers’ 40-17 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.
In a group chat, those at the game sent pictures to the out-of-town friends who lost their chance to see the Chargers because of the flex scheduling.
“Wow, we’re so jealous,” the friends responded. “This should have been us next weekend.”
(Photo of Justin Herbert trying to evade Jonathon Cooper in a 2023 game: Gary A. Vasquez / Imagn Images)
