From an e-mail:

Mike,

I just sat through the Monday Night Football debacle that was Baltimore 48 Green Bay 3. It is a disgrace that the NFL would allow such a pitiful game to be shown in primetime. Why has the NFL not done what needed to be done and adopted flexible scheduling? Will we actually have it in the future?

The answer to question two first: we will have flexible scheduling in the Sunday Night NBC package in 2006. It was part of the deal. Flexible scheduling is one of the big reasons that the NFL wanted to move its primetime, network package to Sunday nights.

Simply put, there was no way to work flexible scheduling for Monday Night Football. There were several reasons for it, but a big one that is rarely mentioned: team travel.

For Sunday games, NFL teams travel on Saturday afternoons. 31 of the 32 NFL clubs charter an aircraft from one of the major carriers. Only the Seattle Seahawks, owned by billionaire Paul Allen, have their own plane.

Since the teams travel just 10 times per year (two preseason games, eight regular season games) and carry roughly a party of 125 people, it makes little sense for an NFL team to own their plane.

So the team leaves on Saturday early afternoon, arrives at the hotel late Saturday afternoon, has meetings and meals until mid-evening and then goes to bed. The team gets up on Sunday morning, has breakfast, heads for the stadium, plays the game and then flies home.

From most trips, NFL players and staff are typically home by around 9pm on Sunday night. In all, an NFL road trip lasts between 30-33 hours for players and staff.

So play hypothetical with a Monday night flexible scheduling change…

Let’s say that instead of Baltimore 48 Green Bay 3, ABC used their flexible scheduling option and moved San Diego at Indianapolis from Sunday afternoon to Monday Night Football.

The Chargers now have some big-time travel issues.

First of all, the Chargers don’t need the chartered plane on Saturday and Sunday; they need it on Sunday and Monday. The Chargers’ chartered aircraft has been scheduled four to five months in advance and, as you might guess, they are paying a lot of money for it. Plus, the airline doesn’t have large planes just sitting around unused. There is scheduled service leading up to the charter time block and the plane goes right back into scheduled service when the team is done.

So now, with their game moved from Sunday to Monday night, the Chargers are going to have to find another plane.

This change doesn’t even take into account the airline pilots, whose schedules are regulated by their union and by federal law.

San Diego can probably get a plane and pilots for Sunday and Monday, but it is going to be a huge hassle and it is going to cost some serious money to move the trip one day later.

The bigger hassle is probably going to be the Chargers’ hotel.

For Saturday night stays, many hotels can host NFL teams. Saturdays are not typically busy nights for hotels, so a request for 100+ rooms isn’t too difficult to accommodate.

Now a move to Sunday night is totally different.

With business travelers getting a jump on the coming week, hotels are normally about twice as full on Sunday nights as they are on Saturday nights. That means fewer hotels can host an NFL team on Sunday night because they are booked. There aren’t multitudes of hotels that can host an NFL team in Indianapolis to start with. Not only does it take a large-sized hotel to make it work, but it also takes a facility that has ample meeting space, staffing, catering, etc.

Now that the game has been moved to Monday, the number of available Indianapolis hotels has been cut in half, if not further. Some are just sold out on Sunday night with business travelers, conventions, etc.

And what if the Chargers’ original hotel in Indy---the one that they contracted with back in April---cannot accommodate them on Sunday night?

Now, the Chargers are scrambling to find a new hotel that has the available rooms and the ample meeting space to accommodate the team. Because it’s Sunday night and hotels have plenty of possible business locked it, it means that the Chargers are going to pay higher rates for rooms. And, if San Diego has to make a change because their original hotel doesn’t have room on Sunday night, the Chargers are going to have to buy their way out of that original contract.

It may be confusing, but you are getting the picture. If games were moved from Sunday to Monday night, the logistics for a team---planned now in days, instead of months---were going to be a huge mess. Plus, the added cost of making these changes could cost between $25,000 and $50,000. Or maybe more.

And let’s not forget the road team that is being moved from Monday night back to Sunday. While their inconvenience and cost would not be as great as the road team that was being moved to Monday, it would still be a hassle for them nonetheless.

Anyone see why the teams were never jumping up and down about Sunday to Monday night flexible scheduling? Every week, two of the league’s 32 teams would be scrambling and spending a healthy chunk of money to boot. When you add the team’s negatives with the fact that CBS and Fox didn’t really want to help ABC, flexible scheduling for Monday nights had no traction.

It does for Sunday night games on NBC in 2006, however.

First, the league announced that it was going to happen up front, so CBS and Fox had to get over whatever reservations that they had.

Second, the move of games from Sunday afternoon to Sunday night is of minimal consequence to the teams. They’ll leave a little later on Saturday. They’ll stay in the hotel on Sunday for a couple of hours more. Otherwise, it is the same trip.

No harm, no foul. Everyone wins.

But the big winner is the fan.