FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA
NBC, 7:30 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: For football fans, this is a season unlike any other – but it appears it will begin on schedule, at least regarding tonight’s season-opening Thursday night game, the first official contest of the 2020 NFL pro season. The Houston Texans and the Kansas City Chiefs take the field at Arrowhead Stadium, where the audience capacity in that Kansas City venue will be limited to 20 percent. I wonder how they set up and enforce six-feet-distancing at the food vendor stalls, which are the second most closely packed locations in most stadiums. (The most closely packed? Don’t ask. But if you’ve ever attended a game, you know.) How the audience behaves will be one part of this telecast. How the players express their Black Lives Matter sentiments before the game, and during the anthem, will be another part. And then there’s the contest on the field. All of it, this year, is fraught with tension that has nothing to do with the actual football competition.