December 4, 2025 • 10 mins
Hans Schroeder NFL EVP, Media Distribution on the Bengals record setting Thanksgiving night game.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Goals twenty four from five. This is ESPN fifteen to thirty. Moeger,
thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
One of the cool things about Thursday Night, Yes, the
Bengals win, but the Bengals won in front of a
massive audience. That game Baltimore hosting Cincinnati. Thanksgiving Night average
twenty eight point four million viewers. The Thanksgiving triple ahead
of the NFL had was massive. Most watched Thanksgiving Day
(00:28):
average on record forty four point seven million average viewers
for the three games, and huge matchups too, obviously Green Bay, Detroit, Casey,
Dallas and the most important game of course, Cincinnati on
the road against Baltimore. Here to talk about that for
a few minutes is a Cincinnati native. He is the
NFL EVP of Media Distribution, Hans Schroeder. I believe your
(00:51):
second time on the show, Hans. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
How are you.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Great to talk to you. I think yeah.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
I think we connected back.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
In twenty two on that on super Bowl week and
on to the Super Bowl for the Bengals. So it's
been a bit but it's great to connect.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I think you kind of had the perfect storm on
Thanksgiving night, right, It's it's a divisional rivalry, it's a
lot of familiarity, it's a former to a two time MVP,
and Lamar Jackson. I also think like Joe Burrow brings eyeballs,
Joe Burrow's return, though, is a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I think that helped.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Look it all helped, you know, coach Coach Madden would
always say about Thanksgiving. You know, it's about two great
things coming together, which is football, fa and family and
probably add food into that one coach. And so you know,
you've seen that we've seen our viewership grow now four
years in a row on Thanksgiving and it's really just
becoming this unique high point of the season for our fans.
(01:50):
And certainly as we look to this year, you know,
we thought there was an opportunity to even put some
of our bigger matchups into and onto Thanksgiving and and
continue that growth. And by the way, I should, I
should hit it head on what we I know that
the Cincinnati fans feel like they're in Baltimore a lot on.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
The road in primetime on Thursday.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I could tell everybody there. We looked really long and
hard and deep into the scheduling process. We actually saw
a lot of times where Baltimore was in Cincinnati on primetime,
but it just in the final the final schedule that
we sort of liked the most about. Uh, it ended
up the other way. But look, that was the culmination
(02:30):
with what is now one of the best divisional rivalries
the last couple of years is from the Bengals of
getting the Ravens together. We thought a great way to
end up after you know, Detroit and Green Bay and
and Tacy and Dallas and and and a great way
to end Thanksgiving in a really special way.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And and then we had Joe's.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Return, as you said, which which all sort of made
it even that much greater.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
This this might be a stupid question, but obviously on
Thanksgiving you're going to have Detroit in Dallas. You now
have had the primetime game for for years. The Bengals
played in one way back in twenty ten, So you
have four different teams minus obviously Detroit and Dallas. Do
do teams request do they ask to play on Thanksgiving?
Because Burrow talked about it after the game about you
(03:11):
know how cool it would be to play Thanksgiving night.
Is this something that teams ask if they can be
a part of.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Look, I think teams love playing in national windows and
whether that's four twenty five on Sunday or prime time,
and then Thanksgiving sort of reaching another level. Obviously, it's
it's a Thursday, so it's a shorter week, and we
have some considerations, you know, obviously with how we play
teams on Thursdays and shorter weeks.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I think teams love playing on home. It's at home on.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Thursdays, especially those short weeks. But I think the stage
and the profile in the audience now is making it
a little bit different. But it's really team to team,
you know, and and player to player. I think how
they think about it. But you know, when you start
seeing these audiences number that number in Dallas, rival I
think it's rivaled last year's AFC Championship game. It's our
fourth highest few game outside of a super Bowl. You know,
(04:01):
it's reaching levels that I think players love to play
on big stages, and there's no bigger stage for us
in the regular season now than Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Chiefs Cowboys averaged on CBS fifty seven point two million viewers.
So you know who's gonna play each other, right, It's
a matter of sloting the games. Did it take you
less than five seconds to put the Chiefs on Thanksgiving afternoon?
Speaker 5 (04:26):
It's a great question.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Yeah, it's actually you know, when we've looked at it
and sort of looked over the past few years, and
we try to look at what our fans are telling us,
and you know when when more and more people are
tuning in on Thanksgiving and it's we hit big numbers
or fortunate on Sunday afternoon or Sunday night, But what
we really see is a few windows separating themselves and
(04:48):
kick offs one of them and Thanksgiving to another one.
And so you know, we put some really good games
on those days, but we thought there was an opportunity
to put even some of our bigger matchups. You know,
this year had a we have a great schedule and
a great set of games every year, but there were
some fun ones with the AFC North playing the NFC
North and NFC East, you know playing the NFC North.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
We've just had a.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Lot of really fun, interesting, big matchups and it really
gave us an opportunity to put some of our bigger
matchups on Thanksgiving and see how high up.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Up could be.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
And it ended up being really high and frilled with
it and hopefully the winner is ultimately our fans and
our partners.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
When you see those type results.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You mentioned, you know, the Bengals Ravens thing in primetime
on a Thursday, and like, I won't lie, we've griped
about it here.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
They have to go there in a short week every year.
This year they won.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And look both the two games the Ravens and Bengals
played last year, we're both awesome. One was in primetime.
Obviously you want those games in big windows. But is
there you know, people go all conspiracy when they see
the schedule come out. What is the biggest misconception that
fans have about how either the schedule comes out when
it comes out in April or may are how it
(06:01):
unfolds once you start getting into two flex scheduling, especially
this time of year.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Look, I think the biggest the biggest misconception that would
be there's any conspiracy because we spent so much time
and effort. It is a five month marathon of trying
to figure out how we make thirty two teams happy,
all our media partners happy, you know, all our you know,
(06:27):
the travel, the competitive aspect now with more international games.
There's so many different things and sort of making sure
we're delivering for our fans that we try to look
through all that and try to figure out how all
those pieces of the puzzle for every one of the
two hundred and seventy two games we have to schedule,
how do we make it the best possible schedule that
(06:49):
we can. And look, we do look at trends, We
look at things. We went into this year. We were
pretty conscious of Cincinnati as an example, being on the
road a lot in recent years, particularly in time, and
you know that that was something we wanted to make
sure we were equitable. Your friend Paul Dayers and Jay
have a lot of stats about being on the road
in the division on Thursday nights and otherwise, you know,
(07:11):
like even you know, we try to keep track of
all those data points and so you know, certainly it
was an important you saw that come to life with
the Pittsburgh game and being in Cincinnati. So look, we
look at all that. You know, it's an impossible job
to make, you know, to talk fully solve for everything
in a maximum way that we could, but we try
(07:32):
to get as close as we can, and I think
this year we're up six percent going into Thanksgiving weekend.
That should be the biggest you know, your weekend in
our history.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
As a league.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So that number is giving them go up. So I
think we're doing something right. But we're always trying to
be smarter, always trying to learn, always trying to figure
out how we can get better. And again I would
just stress, you know, we really try to think about
all the different considerations and really be as fair and
equitable as we can be.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
All Right, I root for myself the Black Friday game?
Can I get that next year?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Look, I tell you, like another thing Coach Madden would
say with you know and Howard Katz who ran the
scheduling process before me for many years. You know, it's
say it sounds like a football game, and you know
that that Bears Eagles sounds like a football on Black Friday.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
But you know, Bengals.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Steelers and Bengals Ravens, there's a lot of there's a
lot of Bengals games in Ohio and being from there
and knowing how special football is and intertwined and by
the way, and seeing that game, what was it a couple.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Of Fridays ago? Was it? Was it?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Ex An Elder that was playing and in the stadium
and twenty plus thousand people there, and we know what
a and bad weather, We know what a big football
town you know there is in in in what Cincinnati,
in the state of Ohio is.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
So look, we like.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
One of the things we like about adding Thanksgiving Night
and Black Friday is that adding the ability for more
teams over Thanksgiving weekend to play on that big stage.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So again, I think we'll look at it.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
We'll look at it continuing to build Black Friday and
and certainly you know Ohio and cincinnati'd be a great
home for a Black Friday game one day.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Well, when you're when you're jotting down next year, just
keep me in the back of your mind, because I
at home game. I want to I want to go
to pay Corps on on Black Friday. That'd be a
lot of fun. Congrats on an awesome Thanksgiving. You have
like such a fascinating job. I could talk to you
for hours, So maybe one day I'll ask you to
do that. But I can't thank you enough, and we'll
(09:35):
catch up down the road. Hans, thanks so.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Much, well, thank you.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I got to get at some point I got to
hear about how you did a show on a concussion.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
I think I heard that in a podcast recently and
I got to give a shout out to a good
friend of mine, Louis from Lachland back in Cincinnati. So anyways,
I'm happy to join any time. Would love to talk
to you, and uh, you know, take care and hope it.
H You know, we got a big one, I know
for the Bengals and Bill on Sunday, so you know,
(10:02):
hopefully that's you know, that's an exciting game as well.
So reach out anytime, great to connect you.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Got it, Hans, We definitely will. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
That's uh, Hans Schroeder, NFL e VP Media Distribution. That's
collect dude has just an awesome job. And uh, at
least he acknowledges we're tired of the Bengals having to
go to Baltimore in a short week.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Dan Klaskin's next
Goals twenty four from five. This is ESPN fifteen to thirty. Moeger,
thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
One of the cool things about Thursday Night, Yes, the
Bengals win, but the Bengals won in front of a
massive audience. That game Baltimore hosting Cincinnati. Thanksgiving Night average
twenty eight point four million viewers. The Thanksgiving triple ahead
of the NFL had was massive. Most watched Thanksgiving Day
(00:28):
average on record forty four point seven million average viewers
for the three games, and huge matchups too, obviously Green Bay, Detroit, Casey,
Dallas and the most important game of course, Cincinnati on
the road against Baltimore. Here to talk about that for
a few minutes is a Cincinnati native. He is the
NFL EVP of Media Distribution, Hans Schroeder. I believe your
(00:51):
second time on the show, Hans. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
How are you.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Great to talk to you. I think yeah.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
I think we connected back.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
In twenty two on that on super Bowl week and
on to the Super Bowl for the Bengals. So it's
been a bit but it's great to connect.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I think you kind of had the perfect storm on
Thanksgiving night, right, It's it's a divisional rivalry, it's a
lot of familiarity, it's a former to a two time MVP,
and Lamar Jackson. I also think like Joe Burrow brings eyeballs,
Joe Burrow's return, though, is a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I think that helped.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Look it all helped, you know, coach Coach Madden would
always say about Thanksgiving. You know, it's about two great
things coming together, which is football, fa and family and
probably add food into that one coach. And so you know,
you've seen that we've seen our viewership grow now four
years in a row on Thanksgiving and it's really just
becoming this unique high point of the season for our fans.
(01:50):
And certainly as we look to this year, you know,
we thought there was an opportunity to even put some
of our bigger matchups into and onto Thanksgiving and and
continue that growth. And by the way, I should, I
should hit it head on what we I know that
the Cincinnati fans feel like they're in Baltimore a lot on.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
The road in primetime on Thursday.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I could tell everybody there. We looked really long and
hard and deep into the scheduling process. We actually saw
a lot of times where Baltimore was in Cincinnati on primetime,
but it just in the final the final schedule that
we sort of liked the most about. Uh, it ended
up the other way. But look, that was the culmination
(02:30):
with what is now one of the best divisional rivalries
the last couple of years is from the Bengals of
getting the Ravens together. We thought a great way to
end up after you know, Detroit and Green Bay and
and Tacy and Dallas and and and a great way
to end Thanksgiving in a really special way.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And and then we had Joe's.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Return, as you said, which which all sort of made
it even that much greater.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
This this might be a stupid question, but obviously on
Thanksgiving you're going to have Detroit in Dallas. You now
have had the primetime game for for years. The Bengals
played in one way back in twenty ten, So you
have four different teams minus obviously Detroit and Dallas. Do
do teams request do they ask to play on Thanksgiving?
Because Burrow talked about it after the game about you
(03:11):
know how cool it would be to play Thanksgiving night.
Is this something that teams ask if they can be
a part of.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Look, I think teams love playing in national windows and
whether that's four twenty five on Sunday or prime time,
and then Thanksgiving sort of reaching another level. Obviously, it's
it's a Thursday, so it's a shorter week, and we
have some considerations, you know, obviously with how we play
teams on Thursdays and shorter weeks.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I think teams love playing on home. It's at home on.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Thursdays, especially those short weeks. But I think the stage
and the profile in the audience now is making it
a little bit different. But it's really team to team,
you know, and and player to player. I think how
they think about it. But you know, when you start
seeing these audiences number that number in Dallas, rival I
think it's rivaled last year's AFC Championship game. It's our
fourth highest few game outside of a super Bowl. You know,
(04:01):
it's reaching levels that I think players love to play
on big stages, and there's no bigger stage for us
in the regular season now than Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Chiefs Cowboys averaged on CBS fifty seven point two million viewers.
So you know who's gonna play each other, right, It's
a matter of sloting the games. Did it take you
less than five seconds to put the Chiefs on Thanksgiving afternoon?
Speaker 5 (04:26):
It's a great question.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Yeah, it's actually you know, when we've looked at it
and sort of looked over the past few years, and
we try to look at what our fans are telling us,
and you know when when more and more people are
tuning in on Thanksgiving and it's we hit big numbers
or fortunate on Sunday afternoon or Sunday night, But what
we really see is a few windows separating themselves and
(04:48):
kick offs one of them and Thanksgiving to another one.
And so you know, we put some really good games
on those days, but we thought there was an opportunity
to put even some of our bigger matchups. You know,
this year had a we have a great schedule and
a great set of games every year, but there were
some fun ones with the AFC North playing the NFC
North and NFC East, you know playing the NFC North.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
We've just had a.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Lot of really fun, interesting, big matchups and it really
gave us an opportunity to put some of our bigger
matchups on Thanksgiving and see how high up.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Up could be.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
And it ended up being really high and frilled with
it and hopefully the winner is ultimately our fans and
our partners.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
When you see those type results.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
You mentioned, you know, the Bengals Ravens thing in primetime
on a Thursday, and like, I won't lie, we've griped
about it here.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
They have to go there in a short week every year.
This year they won.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And look both the two games the Ravens and Bengals
played last year, we're both awesome. One was in primetime.
Obviously you want those games in big windows. But is
there you know, people go all conspiracy when they see
the schedule come out. What is the biggest misconception that
fans have about how either the schedule comes out when
it comes out in April or may are how it
(06:01):
unfolds once you start getting into two flex scheduling, especially
this time of year.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Look, I think the biggest the biggest misconception that would
be there's any conspiracy because we spent so much time
and effort. It is a five month marathon of trying
to figure out how we make thirty two teams happy,
all our media partners happy, you know, all our you know,
(06:27):
the travel, the competitive aspect now with more international games.
There's so many different things and sort of making sure
we're delivering for our fans that we try to look
through all that and try to figure out how all
those pieces of the puzzle for every one of the
two hundred and seventy two games we have to schedule,
how do we make it the best possible schedule that
(06:49):
we can. And look, we do look at trends, We
look at things. We went into this year. We were
pretty conscious of Cincinnati as an example, being on the
road a lot in recent years, particularly in time, and
you know that that was something we wanted to make
sure we were equitable. Your friend Paul Dayers and Jay
have a lot of stats about being on the road
in the division on Thursday nights and otherwise, you know,
(07:11):
like even you know, we try to keep track of
all those data points and so you know, certainly it
was an important you saw that come to life with
the Pittsburgh game and being in Cincinnati. So look, we
look at all that. You know, it's an impossible job
to make, you know, to talk fully solve for everything
in a maximum way that we could, but we try
(07:32):
to get as close as we can, and I think
this year we're up six percent going into Thanksgiving weekend.
That should be the biggest you know, your weekend in
our history.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
As a league.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So that number is giving them go up. So I
think we're doing something right. But we're always trying to
be smarter, always trying to learn, always trying to figure
out how we can get better. And again I would
just stress, you know, we really try to think about
all the different considerations and really be as fair and
equitable as we can be.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
All Right, I root for myself the Black Friday game?
Can I get that next year?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Look, I tell you, like another thing Coach Madden would
say with you know and Howard Katz who ran the
scheduling process before me for many years. You know, it's
say it sounds like a football game, and you know
that that Bears Eagles sounds like a football on Black Friday.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
But you know, Bengals.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Steelers and Bengals Ravens, there's a lot of there's a
lot of Bengals games in Ohio and being from there
and knowing how special football is and intertwined and by
the way, and seeing that game, what was it a couple.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Of Fridays ago? Was it? Was it?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Ex An Elder that was playing and in the stadium
and twenty plus thousand people there, and we know what
a and bad weather, We know what a big football
town you know there is in in in what Cincinnati,
in the state of Ohio is.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
So look, we like.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
One of the things we like about adding Thanksgiving Night
and Black Friday is that adding the ability for more
teams over Thanksgiving weekend to play on that big stage.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So again, I think we'll look at it.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
We'll look at it continuing to build Black Friday and
and certainly you know Ohio and cincinnati'd be a great
home for a Black Friday game one day.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Well, when you're when you're jotting down next year, just
keep me in the back of your mind, because I
at home game. I want to I want to go
to pay Corps on on Black Friday. That'd be a
lot of fun. Congrats on an awesome Thanksgiving. You have
like such a fascinating job. I could talk to you
for hours, So maybe one day I'll ask you to
do that. But I can't thank you enough, and we'll
(09:35):
catch up down the road. Hans, thanks so.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Much, well, thank you.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I got to get at some point I got to
hear about how you did a show on a concussion.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
I think I heard that in a podcast recently and
I got to give a shout out to a good
friend of mine, Louis from Lachland back in Cincinnati. So anyways,
I'm happy to join any time. Would love to talk
to you, and uh, you know, take care and hope it.
H You know, we got a big one, I know
for the Bengals and Bill on Sunday, so you know,
(10:02):
hopefully that's you know, that's an exciting game as well.
So reach out anytime, great to connect you.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Got it, Hans, We definitely will. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
That's uh, Hans Schroeder, NFL e VP Media Distribution. That's
collect dude has just an awesome job. And uh, at
least he acknowledges we're tired of the Bengals having to
go to Baltimore in a short week.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Dan Klaskin's next
Mo Egger News
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