Medalla

Wednesday kickoff

Why American football broke a fourteen-year habit and started the season on a Wednesday: for the first time since 2012 the NFL did not open on a Thursday night, and the reason is on the other side of the planet. The league scheduled its first ever regular-season game in Australia, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and the time difference put that broadcast squarely in the American Thursday night slot. Rather than let two openers collide, the league moved kickoff up a day. A small calendar oddity that reveals how television, time zones and global ambition quietly decide when a season begins