Green Bay TV Jumps for Chance to Carry Vikings Games

Oh dear lord, give me a break.

You won't be able to catch Brett Favre at the helm of the Minnesota Vikings on local TV during the preseason, but eight regular-season Vikings games are set on local stations.

WBAY, Channel 2, looked into carrying today's Vikings game against the Kansas City Chiefs with no luck. The Vikings hold the rights to that game.

"They didn't want to give them to us," said Don Carmichael, WBAY general manager. "They didn't want to ruffle the feathers of the Packers."

Two of the remaining preseason Vikings games are spoken for by ESPN and the NFL Network, with no local broadcasts allowed out of the home markets.

Six of the regular-season Vikings games will be carried on Fox affiliate WLUK, Channel 11.

That schedule includes games at noon Sept. 13, at Cleveland Browns; noon Oct. 11, at St. Louis Rams; noon Nov. 1, at Green Bay Packers; noon Nov. 15, Detroit Lions; noon Nov. 29, Chicago Bears; and 3:15 p.m. Dec. 6, at Arizona Cardinals.

Fox tailors its game assignments to what works best for a given market, "and it turns out most of the games assigned to us include the Vikings," said Jay Zollar, WLUK general manager.

WBAY landed local rights for ESPN's "Monday Night Football" coverage of the 7:30 p.m. Oct. 5 Packers-Vikings game .

Also in the schedule is the noon Dec. 13 Cincinnati Bengals-Vikings game on CBS affiliate WFRV, Channel 5. The Oct. 18 Vikings game on CBS conflicts with the Packers game that day.

It's common for television markets within the same NFL division to show the other games of their in-division opponents on their networks; your team often isn't the only game you'll be able to see on Fox or CBS on a given Sunday.  This may just be the first time Green Bay media actually posted the schedule of them in public before.

Last season, the Green Bay CBS-affiliate WFRV, made a special plea to the network to get as many New York Jets game as possible.  That request was fulfilled.