LOOK: Johnny Manziel has dramatic effect on NFL Week 15 TV coverage
Andy Dalton vs. Brian Hoyer was going to be shown to 16 percent of the country, that number has shot up to almost 50 percent now that Johnny Manziel is starting.
Nearly 50 percent of the country will have a chance to see Johnny Manziel's first ever NFL start on Sunday.
The Battle of Ohio is going national thanks to Johnny Football.
Pre-@JManziel2 starting, @FOXSports planned to show Bengals-Browns in 16 percent of nation. Now: 46 percent.
— Neil Best (@sportswatch) December 12, 2014
Andy Dalton vs. Brian Hoyer might have been exciting -- who am I kidding, nobody wanted Hoyer-Dalton round two and we're all better off with Johnny Football vs. a Bengals team coached by a guy who thinks Manziel's a midget.
This game has more sub-plots than a daytime soap opera.
Just to give you an idea of what the Manziel effect looks like from a visual standpoint, here's two maps from 506sports.com. The website creates a map each week so you can see what regional game is going to be shown in your part of the country.
Green Bay at Buffalo is in red in the map below. Browns-Bengals is in green.
The top map in green is where Browns-Bengals was going to be shown before Manziel was starting, bottom map is after. pic.twitter.com/7sxatyZZvO
— John Breech (@johnbreech) December 12, 2014
Although Brown-Bengals is an AFC game, it will be televised by Fox on Sunday. The reason for that is due to cross-flexing, which allows the NFL to move a game from CBS to Fox or vice versa. The 2014 season was the first year where the NFL could cross-flex games.
Browns-Bengals, which was originally supposed to air on CBS, was actually cross-flexed on Nov. 30, before it was known Manziel would be starting.
