NFL Hopes That Televising Giants, Jets Early On Will Help Its Ratings

In a year when ratings are crucial to the NFL’s financial future, the league is playing its big-city trump cards early. New York’s Giants and Jets will play in the first two prime-time games in ABC’s 1986 schedule, Newsday has learned.

The Giants, who have never been much of a prime-time bunch, will open the Monday night season for the first time, playing at Dallas in the first game of ABC’s 17th “Monday Night Football” season on Sept. 8. And the Jets will play a rematch of their wild-card playoff loss to the New England Patriots when ABC opens its Thursday night card Sept. 11 at Giants Stadium.

The NFL is using the Giants and Jets games to try to push TV ratings near the record levels of the early ‘80s. This is the last year of the league’s five-year contract with the networks. Though ratings were up 16% on ABC, 4% on NBC and 10% on CBS from 1984 to ‘85, the networks lost an estimated $45 million last fall because of declining advertising revenue. The Monday night schedule being put together by the NFL this year might be its best in some time because the network, recently acquired by cost-conscious Capital Cities, has threatened to abandon the Monday night games.

The National Football League schedule is expected to be released Thursday. ABC’s schedule also will include Cincinnati at Cleveland Sept. 18, Dallas at St. Louis Sept. 29, Pittsburgh at Cincinnati Oct. 13 and New England at Miami Dec. 22.