default-cbs-image

When the NFL season kicks off in about a month, life will get pretty hectic. There will be football to focus on and a high-spirited presidential election season leading up to Nov. 8. At times, there will be crossover, like in the two instances where NFL prime time games will be forced to go head-to-head against debates in terms of scheduling.

Donald Trump is not happy about this and claimed in an interview with ABC News he got a "letter from the NFL" complaining about two debates conflicting with football games.

"Well I'll tell you what I don't like. It's against two NFL games. I got a letter from the NFL saying, 'This is ridiculous.' Because the NFL doesn't want to go against the debates, because the debates are going to be pretty massive from what I understand, OK?" Trump said. "And I don't think we should be against the NFL. I don't know how the dates were picked. I don't like dates against -- Hillary Clinton wants to be against the NFL, maybe like she did with Bernie Sanders when they were on Saturday nights when nobody's home.

"But they're against the NFL, I saw the dates, and I think two of the three are against the NFL so I'm not thrilled with it."

The NFL got wind of Trump's claim and refuted it. Both Brian McCarthy and Greg Aiello said that the NFL never sent a letter to the Republican nominee.

The idea of someone in the league office penning a letter on official NFL stationary with just the words "This is ridiculous" is kind of amusing, so it's a real shame that didn't happen.

Instead, both events will march on in conflict with one another.

Two of the three debates conflict with the NFL's schedule, with the first presidential debate coming Monday, September 26 (Falcons at Saints on Monday Night Football) and the second one coming Sunday, October 9 (Giants at Packers on Sunday Night Football).

Trump also previously tweeted about the elections being "rigged" because of the schedule conflict with the NFL.


The implication from Trump is that if the debates are held with football games going on, no one will watch them. That's probably not accurate, although as McCarthy noted, clearly the league would rather get all the eyeballs without having to compete with a debate.

And the debate would probably rather have all the eyeballs as well -- plenty of people will watch football instead of Hillary and Trump going head to head.