Aaron Rodgers’ New York Stint Should Generate Big Green for CBS
There is no cheering in the press box, but the rules of deadline decorum don’t apply to the network C-suite, where billions of dollars in forked-over rights fees give TV execs free rein to root their little hearts out. And with the NFL season set to kick off next week, CBS seems to be whooping it up with a renewed sense of vigor, leaning hard into the Fireman Ed routine with a newfound appreciation for the New York Jets.
Since Aaron Rodgers emerged from his winter darkness retreat in a New York state of mind, the NFL’s network partners have been about as fired up for the J-E-T-S as is the helmet-sporting superfan from College Point. But perhaps no broadcaster is more invested in Gang Green’s 2023-24 campaign than CBS, which is scheduled to air at least nine regular-season Jets games, a slate that includes a pair of nationally televised outings in Dallas and Buffalo.
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“To have a relevant Jets team on your network as often as we do is really a dream come true,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said earlier this week during a preseason press huddle. “It’s nothing but good news.”
For McManus, the marriage of the woozily charismatic gunslinger and the country’s largest media market is a match made in football Valhalla. “He is, in many ways, one of—if not the most—marketable quarterbacks in the history of the NFL,” McManus said. “I think the Jets-Dallas game, and this may be a bit of an overstatement, is the most anticipated Jets game in many, many years.”
As it happens, Rodgers’ inaugural trip to JerryWorld as a representative of the AFC coincides with CBS’ first standalone national window, where each 30-second ad unit fetches north of $825,000 a pop. Barring an unforeseen blowout, CBS should have no trouble scaring up some 27.5 million viewers in the back half of its Sept. 17 doubleheader, although a considerable chunk of New York’s 7.73 million TV homes will be eyeballing the Giants-Cardinals game over on Fox.
In a sense, that early five-boroughs Nielsen battle may serve as a localized indicator for what to expect from the Jets, and the AFC in general, on the national stage. For the New York affiliates, there’s nowhere to go but up. In 2022, the Jets were the lowest-rated NFL franchise for the third straight year, posting a 7.0 household rating in the home market. Given the sheer size of the local base, that still translates into a whole bunch of eyeballs—with an average draw of 987,893 households per game, the Jets were the league’s sixth-biggest local attraction—but the raw ratings figures reflect dwindling interest on the home front. (In 2010, or year two of the Rex Ryan era, the Jets averaged a 15.8 rating in New York, edging the Giants by a tenth of a point.)
A lift in the market that can lay claim to 6.2% of all U.S. TV homes should lead to concomitant gains on the national front, as is evident from the 2010 numbers. That same season the Jets and Giants dominated New York media—and when deliveries for all 32 NFL franchises managed to beat out the local competition 91% of the time—the national TV ratings jumped 8% to 17.9 million viewers per game. If you think this is a mere coincidence, you may want to ease up on the ayahuasca tea.
While the NFC and its blockbuster home markets have long dominated the fall ratings battle, the balance of power is shifting. The AFC’s stable of young arms is at once formidable and ridiculous—along with two-time Super Bowl champ Patrick Mahomes, there’s Josh Allen and Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert and Lamar Jackson and Trevor Lawrence, to name just the Tier One Guys. And serving as the spiritual grandpappy to all these 20-somethings is Rodgers, the wily veteran who’ll turn 40 the day before the Jets host Atlanta in Week 13.
New CBS hire J.J. Watt practically Kool-Aid Man’ed his way through dozens of laptop screens earlier this week when asked to offer his assessment of the grand old QB. “Obviously, we all know he’s got one of the most talented arms in the history of the game, and he clearly appears to be loving his time in New York,” Watt said. “I mean, the guy took a $30 million pay cut! That says all you need to know about what he thinks can happen this season and what he wants to accomplish. … Aaron Rodgers has bought in 100%, and I think that is a scary thing for the rest of the league.”
Fans saw a glimpse of Rodgers’ dark powers during his Hard Knocks interaction with the Giants’ improbably named linebacker, Jihad Ward. During a heated jawing session, Rodgers hit Ward with a stinging, “I don’t even know who you are, bro,” before turning around and linking up with receiver Garrett Wilson on a touchdown toss. Whereupon Rodgers further admonished Ward, telling him, “Don’t poke the bear!”
Ward later told reporters that he took exception to the way the Jets were yukking it up in the huddle after Randall Cobb’s illegal blindside block on Bobby McCain, which left the Giants’ safety with a concussion. (Cobb’s hit was edited out of the Hard Knocks episode.) “The whole team was pissed off,” Ward said. “It’s cool, though. That’s how they roll. I think we play them soon.”
With one cheap hit and a whole lot of chirping and chuckling, suddenly the Week 8 Jets-Giants meeting seems like a must-see in CBS’ 1 p.m. EDT regional window. If Rodgers can do his bit to resurrect the MetLife Stadium rivalry, imagine what he might be able to do for the Jets’ Sept. 11 Monday Night Football opener in Buffalo, or their Oct. 1 run-in with Mahomes’ Chiefs.
“He’s brought a ton of energy and excitement to New York,” said Sunday Night Football sideline reporter Melissa Stark Wednesday during NBC’s NFL preview scrum. “I live in the Jersey area, and I’ve known a lot of disgruntled and sad Jets fans through the years, and he’s brought hope to a very critical media and fan base. … It’s been fun to watch.”
At the risk of trafficking in hyperbole, should Rodgers get Gang Green back into the playoffs for the first time since 2010, they’ll name a side street after him. (If the town elders could see fit to carve out a slice of W. 84th Street for gothic boozebag Edgar Allan Poe and his spooky bird poem, the Badger State transplant should at least get some love in or around the disaffected hipster enclave of Dimes Square.)
In the meantime, the Jets will play in four nationally televised games in the first six weeks of the season, a high-profile run that will see the team cycle from ESPN/ABC to CBS to NBC to Fox. After a bye week and that Oct. 29 Giants game, the Jets will appear in three consecutive coast-to-coast broadcast windows, the first two of which are set to air in primetime. Once the last kid to get selected in the neighborhood pickup game—in the last 10 years, the Jets have played in just one national Sunday broadcast on a Big Three network—the 2023-24 edition of Gang Green is slated for at least seven national airdates between now and Nov. 19.
The drumbeats of hype are thundering. Fireman Ed showed up to work the crowd at Joe Klecko’s Hall of Fame induction. Vegas books have set an over/under of 9.5 wins for this year’s Jets, who now have the seventh-best odds to win a Super Bowl. 1969 was half a lifetime ago. Something’s gotta give. The network suits like what they see, and perhaps nobody’s more primed for takeoff than Sean McManus.
“I think they’re going to be a great story all year long,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to have the New York Jets exactly where we are in the pecking order.”
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