There are probably only two reasons that a pair of presidents from network sports divisions, another network’s analytics and insights guru, and the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution would hop on a conference call with reporters.

· They were celebrating a new, multibillion dollar broadcast rights deal.

· They were celebrating staggeringly excellent ratings that someday will lead to even more billions in the next rights deal.

The latter was the reason last Wednesday, when CBS Sports president/CEO David Berson, NBC Sports president Rick Cordella, Fox Sports’s Michael Mulvihill, and NFL executive vice president Hans Schroeder convened on a call to fully court the press not more than an hour after the league’s massive Thanksgiving ratings were announced.

Make no mistake,

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