Roger Goodell’s ‘Thursday Night’ flex plan is straight-up greed

When the NFL announces its attendance for each game, it really should refer to the crowd as its studio audience or extras or ambient noise providers.

The fans are just there to provide the background for the TV show.

To prove it, in his latest act of greed, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has enacted flexible scheduling for “Thursday Night Football.” It is designed to make sure streaming works so the billion a year that Amazon Prime Video currently pays for TNF can become two billion in seven years, when the league has an opt-out, or 11 seasons when the contract ends.

The hundreds or even thousands of dollars the average fan pays to attend games don’t matter. The billionaire owners need more, more, more. It’s never enough.

This week, pushed by Goodell, NFL owners voted 24-8 to allow flex scheduling during the final five Thursday-night games of the regular season (weeks 13-17). If one more owner had showed a soul, the proposal would not have passed.

Instead it means if you bought tickets for a Sunday game, it may be moved to Thursday with just four weeks notice. You had a trip with friends with a flight and hotel and getting off work that you were arriving Friday for a Sunday game. Well, that might just be played Thursday, the day before your flight was taking off. The NFL doesn’t care about you.

They care about money. That’s it. (This doesn’t even take into account the other poor slouch, whose Thursday night ticket will now be turned into a Sunday afternoon game.)

In a sign that it doesn’t feel right, there were immediate reports about how the NFL won’t use TNF flex unless it is an emergency, which might mean something a bit different to a billionaire owner than to someone setting a budget to wedge in affording travel to a game.

The reason the NFL enacted TNF flex is because they want streaming games to work. With the diminishing of cable, NFL executives view streaming as the next frontier to build on the 11-year, $110 billion deals that start this season.

Those deals, with Amazon, ESPN, Fox, CBS and NBC, all include outs in seven years that the NFL has circled. If the league can make Amazon Prime Video a success, then it hopes to entice the likes of Apple to the negotiating table. The NFL cares about Tim Cook, not Joe Fan.

There is also the incentive to boost Amazon’s ratings, which, according to Nielsen, averaged 9.58 million viewers per game.

The NFL is further incentivized to improve that number because there is a ratings trigger that would lead to Amazon paying $100 million-plus for a playoff game, according to sources.

The exact numbers are unknown, but the NFL wants that money. The NFL and Amazon declined comment.

In the meantime, the NFL secured a deal to put a playoff game this season behind a streaming paywall on Peacock, which will pay $110 million for that one opening-round game. It will be very interesting to see what matchup Peacock receives. Streaming is even more dependent on the matchups than staples such as the late window on Sunday or “Sunday Night Football” or “Monday Night Football” are. Those are habits.

The time slots, of course, do better with bigger games, but you would have to seek out a streamer, such as Amazon Prime Video or Peacock, to watch the game instead of stumbling across it on CBS, Fox, NBC or ESPN/ABC.

So Goodell doesn’t want two 4-10 teams scheduled to play on a Thursday night to get in the way of this money. Your money, my money, it’s not as important. Goodell and the owners lack respect for the most diehard fan. Well, some don’t.

In a credit to our local owners, the Giants’ John Mara and the Jets’ Woody Johnson both voted against the TNF flex measure. Six other owners did, as well. They know it is wrong.

But Goodell needed 24 votes to get it passed. And it is such a good deal for you and me, the NFL is vowing only to use it once or maybe not at all.

The real message: Fans, make your plans, buy your jerseys, book your flights and hotels. We need you to create the scene. We may flex a 1 p.m. Sunday game to 8:15 p.m. for NBC or, also new this year, a late season Sunday game to Monday night for ESPN or we just might move your game from Sunday up to Thursday.

After all, you are just NFL studio audience suckers.