The title is self-explanitory. I’ve heard that the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area is home to many Pittsburgh Steelers fans, but WHP, the Harrisburg-York area CBS affiliate must show Baltimore Ravens games because Harrisburg is a secondary market to Baltimore. Does something like that happen anywhere else? What else about NFL TV coverage is there to know?
It is pretty compicated. Wikipedia has a decent article which should answer your question:
My experience from watching the NFL is that there is an early afternoon, and a late afternoon set of games. You get three games on Sunday. One is your markets game, and that is the only one on the national networks at that time for your region. The other two are the top games in their time slot for each network. I’m sure the Harrisburg situation is not uncommon, but there is a lot of money at stake. The NFL and/or the networks do a lot of work to ensure that they get the most viewers possible.