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Published on Tuesday, 19 April 2011 21:26
Despite being mired in a lockout and even though there is a chance there will be no 2011-2012 season, the NFL tonight released team schedules for the upcoming season. This is done in the hopes that the ongoing battle between the NFL owners and the NFL Players Union can have an amicable solution reached in the next two months. The pre-season schedule was released
last week, and as of this evening, the regular season schedule is out, which includes the broadcast schedule.
Thanks in part to the team's strong finish last season, the Bears will have a difficult season ahead of them, including starting out the season with battles against three of the top teams in the league. The Bears will also have games on both Christmas and New Years this season. The team will have no Thursday night games, with all but two games being played on Sundays.
On television, the Bears will have the majority of their games air on Chicago's FOX station, WFLD-TV, who has the pleasure of airing ten of these highly rated broadcasts. CBS's WBBM-TV will get two games this season. NBC's WMAQ-TV will get two prime time Sunday Night Football match-ups, including a Bears/Packers battle on Christmas night. The Bears have another pair of prime-time games, as ESPN has selected two games for their Monday Night Football program. As a general rule, ESPN will usually allow WLS-TV to also air the ESPN cable feed. However, there have been times in the last few seasons when WLS-TV has passed on the highly-rated sports broadcast to not have a disruption of their regularly scheduled network programming. If that should happen this year, the ESPN local broadcast(s) could air on WCIU-TV or WGN-TV. (ESPN & ABC's WLS-TV share the same parent company in the Disney-ABC Television Group.)
CBS-TV may only have two Bears games this coming season, but CBS Radio has
every Chicago Bears game this coming season. WBBM-AM/Newsradio 780 will once again be the flagship home for the local NFL team. The radio announcing team remains the same, as well: Jeff Joniak on play-by-play, Tom Thayer on color commentary and Zach Zaidman reporting from the sidelines.
Here is the Chicago Bears 2011 regular season schedule:
Week 1: Sunday, September 11 - vs Atlanta - Noon -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 2: Sunday, September 18 - at New Orleans - Noon -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 3: Sunday, September 25 - vs Green Bay - 3:15pm -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 4: Sunday, October 2 - vs Carolina, - Noon -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 5: Monday, October 10 - at Detroit - 7:30pm -- ESPN/WBBM-AM
Week 6: Sunday, October 16 - vs Minnesota - 7:20pm -- WMAQ-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 7: Sunday, October 23 - vs. Tampa Bay (in London) - Noon -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 8 Bye Week - No game
Week 9: Monday, November 7 - at Philadelphia - 7:30pm -- ESPN/WBBM-AM
Week 10: Sunday, November 13 - vs Detroit - Noon -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 11: Sunday, November 20 - vs San Diego - 3:15pm -- WBBM-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 12: Sunday, November 27 - at Oakland - 3:05pm -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 13: Sunday, December 4 - vs Kansas City - Noon -- WBBM-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 14: Sunday, December 11 - at Denver - 3:05pm -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 15: Sunday, December 18 - vs Seattle - Noon -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 16: Sunday, December 25 - at Green Bay - 7:20pm -- WMAQ-TV/WBBM-AM
Week 17: Sunday, January 1 - at Minnesota - Noon -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
(Schedule is subject to change.)
UPDATE 4/20/11: The official NFL Schedule and official schedule given out by the Chicago Bears, both released yesterday, contained an error. The 11/20 game will be broadcast by CBS, not FOX. This article has been corrected to reflect that.
