NBC’s Mike Tirico began the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics by saying “just over six months ago in Tokyo, we said we were about to embark on an Olympics unlike any other.

ESPN’s pursuit of Peyton Manning to be a part of “Monday Night Football” has paid off.

A worker cleans seats in Arrowhead Stadium before an NFL football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers, Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021, in Kansas City. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)Regular-season ratings for NFL games declined this season following two straight years of increases. The league averaged 16.5 million regular-season viewers last season after posting 5% gains in both 2018 and ’19. During the last presidential election year in 2016, NFL ratings were down 8%. There is increasing speculation that Monday night games might be returning full-time to network television for the first time since 2005.

In a year in which few things are normal, there will be some familiar things about NFL broadcasts this season. They have been gathering multi-channel surround audio recordings from every NFL stadium for use in their productions over the past four seasons. Dont doubt the NFL is going to use this as leverage.PRESEASON MAKEUPS: The league will allow stations that have preseason broadcast rights with teams to re-air regular-season games in their markets. Usually, replays are only available on NFL Network or NFL Game Pass. The biggest change in the upcoming rights deals could be Monday nights returning to ABC and ESPN going for the Thursday night games.