National Football League

The 2022 Olympics are on track to coincide with the Super Bowl for first time

Published Jul. 31, 2015 1:43 p.m. ET

foxsports

Pump the brakes on getting your catering plans in order for Super Bowl 56, folks, because you might have a decision to make. With the IOC awarding the 2022 Winter Olympics to Beijing on Friday, the games are on track to coincide with the Super Bowl for the first time. This could cause some degree of consternation for those associated with the United States' most-watched television broadcast every year.

The opening ceremony for the Olympics that year are scheduled for Feb. 4. If the NFL sticks with its first-Sunday-in-February scheduling practice for the Super Bowl, 2022's game will fall on Feb. 6, the games' third day. The 2014 Sochi Olympics averaged some 21.4 million viewers. The 2015 Super Bowl averaged 114.4 million, making it the most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history.

NBC holds the television rights to the 2022 Olympics in accordance with the current rights deal; if the NFL's current roation of Super Bowl rights among NBC, CBS and FOX holds through 2022, CBS would broadcast the game that year.

All that said, these things are fluid and could change drastically by the time February 2022 rolls around. The Olympics could move their opening ceremony to accomodate the Super Bowl. Some have suggested the NFL move the Super Bowl to the Sunday of Presidents' Day weekend, but that wouldn't solve this particular problem -- the Sunday of Presidents' Day weekend 2022 is Feb. 20, the precise date the Olympics' closing ceremony is currently scheduled.

(h/t Reddit)