The Minnesota Vikings will once again be relegated to the late afternoon window in Week 3, and because of that the area where you’ll be able to view them live on over-the-air television is a bit more limited than it has been over the first couple of weeks of the season.
The folks from 506 Sports have released the coverage maps for this week’s NFL games. Here is the map for the late window games on FOX, with the Vikings’ game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers represented by the blue area.
As you can
see, the blue area is not terribly large. It encompasses a decent chunk of the midwest as well as most of Florida, as well as the Houston metro area, a portion of the New England states, the Pittsburgh area, and the Indianapolis/Cincinnati areas.
This seems like as good a time as any to review the NFL’s doubleheader rules, since they’ll be affecting the Vikings here. Both CBS and FOX are allowed to air doubleheaders in Week 1 and Week 18, but after that they alternate weeks as to who can show a doubleheader in a single market.
This week, CBS has the doubleheader. So, if you live in the blue area, there will NOT be an early game on your local FOX affiliate before the Vikings’ game kicks off at 3:05 PM Central. There will be an early and a late game on your local CBS affiliate, but not on FOX. The other FOX game in the late window is represented by the orange area on the map above, which is the Arizona Cardinals at the San Francisco 49ers. The rest of the map above is colored for the early games on FOX.
- Red: Los Angeles Chargers at Buffalo Bills
- Green: New York Jets at Detroit Lions
- Yellow: Seattle Seahawks at Washington Commanders
- Aqua: Carolina Panthers at Cleveland Browns
The doubleheader rules also mean that if you live outside of the blue area, you will have to find the game on YouTube TV NFL Sunday Ticket. Or find an alternative location to watch the game from or something.
So, if you want to watch the Vikings live this weekend, it might be a bit more difficult than it’s been over the first two weeks of the season. Hopefully, as many Vikings fans as possible will be able to find a way to watch this one.
