NFL Network Cancels Shows, Hosts Could Be Let Go After $20M Budget Cut

The NFL Network has cancelled five TV shows and will replace them with others celebrating the league's 100th season this year on account of a $20 million budget cut.

Soon to be off-air are former Dallas Cowboys’ star Deion Sanders’ “21st & Prime,” “Power Rankings,” “Pick ‘em,” “Playbook” and “Mic’d Up.” The future of the weekend edition of “Good Morning Football” is also in doubt.

NFL claims the cancellation of these programs is part of an effort to shift spending towards the NFL’s 100th anniversary celebrations. It had nothing to do with ratings, but others doubt this claim.

“As part of an increased investment in programming and content for 2019, NFL Network will unveil several shows geared towards a celebration of the NFL’s 100th season,” said NFL network spokesman Alex Riethmiller to The New York Post. “These shows will replace a handful of existing shows from our 2018 schedule.”

NFL Network apparently absorbed part of the 100th anniversary celebration cost into its budget, which might partly explain the cancellation of these five shows.

Negotiations with on-air personnel following the cancellation of the five shows have become tense, said NFL insiders, and there's a feeling some hosts will either be fired or forced to take pay cuts.

The 2019 NFL season, its 100th, will begin Sept. 5 with the NFL Kickoff Game featuring the Chicago Bears against the Green Bay Packers. The season will conclude with Super Bowl LIV scheduled for Feb. 2, 2020 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida.

The NFL kicked off its 100th season by spending a huge sum to produce its highly-entertaining dinner party commercial aired last February at Super Bowl LIII, which was won by the New England Patriots.

The two-minute ad, and shorter versions, featured a number of the game’s living greats (some in tuxedos) from past and present scrambling for a loose ball in a highly entertaining spot. The buzz is the NFL spent seven figures creating this well-received ad.