NFL Commissioner Rodger Goodell delivered his annual state of the league address in Indianapolis on Friday. In that state of the league address, Goodell made mention that the NFL has decided to expand their Thursday Night Football package to 13 games. The first Thursday Night Football game will be in Week 2 this season and every single team in the NFL will have at least one prime time game. Last season the Jacksonville Jaguars had three prime time games, including one Thursday night game. The other two were on Monday Night Football and both at home.
With this announcement the league is also putting pressure on cable service providers who do not carry the NFL Network, service providers such as Time Warner and Cablevision, the two largest providers who do not offer NFL Network. This will also help the league in selling bigger ad packages, as it adds another prime time game into the rotation.