Why Isn’t The NFL’s Ravens-Cowboys Brazil Game In Primetime?

Sports Broadcasting Act

This year’s Week Three matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys will take place at Maracanã Stadium, but will be played on Sunday at 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS.

The reason the previous two Brazil games could be played in primetime on a Friday was the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which withdraws antitrust immunity from the NFL should it air live games on Friday and Saturday nights between the second weekend of September and second weekend of December each year.

Due to how this year’s calendar fell, the season started during the second weekend of September. In 2024 and 2025, the season started during the first weekend, thus allowing the NFL to take advantage of the loophole.

The NFL’s Kickoff Weekend push for an international game in recent years wasn’t halted in 2026, though. Instead, that game took place in Australia. And due to the timezone differences, the Rams and 49ers were able to play that contest locally on Friday morning in Melbourne. Yet the game aired in primetime on Thursday night in the U.S., avoiding any Sports Broadcasting Act complications.

If the league schedule starts on the second weekend of September once again in 2027, as expected, another Week One game in Brazil, Australia or elsewhere would have to contend with the same restrictions.

Why Not Primetime This Week, Then?

That’s the big question for the matchup. If it was avoiding Week One because of the Sports Broadcasting Act, then what prevented the NFL from scheduling the Brazil game for primetime in Week Three instead?

After all, the Week Three primetime schedule has lost some of its luster already.

Thursday night features a poor Atlanta Falcons team against the underwhelming Green Bay Packers. Sunday night was once – and still could be – a Super Bowl preview, though the shine is also off of both the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Rams after early-season blowout losses. Monday night had potential with the Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Bears. But much of that excitement disappears if Caleb Williams misses the game.

Also hanging over this Cowboys-Ravens game, as has been the case with many international games before, is the reportedly poor field quality in Rio de Janeiro.

The factors that have created those conditions, including heavy humidity and rainfall in recent weeks, are unlikely to clear up completely by the weekend. But staging the game at 5:25 p.m. local time instead of a true primetime window could potentially reduce the impact of the wet surface on quality of play and traction for players running on it.

There is no true and obvious reason for why the game was not in primetime during Week Three, once it was clear the NFL would have to avoid Week One. But if there’s any answer, opting for earlier to mitigate field quality concerns may be the most plausible (though at that point, why not make it a 1 p.m. ET kickoff instead?).

Another, with even less backing, could simply be avoiding an event with late-night tourist crowds in a city with some evening safety concerns. Those tourists would still be exiting in the evening following a 5:25 p.m. kickoff. But that timing would be closer to 9 p.m. now instead of 11 or midnight.

Whether those ideas around weather and potential crime impacts on game schedule are true or not, though, it’s not as if they just now appeared. The NFL scheduled the game while fully aware of them. It will be interesting to see how it handles trips to Brazil going forward.