“We got a cliffhanger!” NBC Sports analyst Chris Collinsworth said at the TCA Summer Press Tour session for Sunday Night Football. “We don’t know what’s going to happen on opening night!” With the season kickoff set for September 10 between the Pittsburgh Steelers at the defending champion New England Patriots…

Super Bowl XLIX will be played Sunday at the end of a season in which the NFL was pounded with reports of abuse against women, children and even footballs. Maybe not coincidentally, this year's Super Bowl advertising is expected to be a lot less snarky and more mom-ified — lighter on the testosterone and heavier on…

Bad news for all those football fans Al Michaels said would "love to forget" the "issues" surrounding the NFL during Sunday's game: The Super Bowl will include a public service announcement featuring a woman calling 911 who pretends to order pizza while actually conveying to the dispatcher she is a victim of domestic…

ESPN today suspended Bill Simmons for three weeks over podcast comments about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. "Every employee must be accountable to ESPN, and those engaged in our editorial operations must also operate within ESPN's journalistic standards,” the network said in a statement. “We have worked hard to…

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said today he will not resign, but will implement new policies of conduct for team players, and mandate education and training of players and staff  for all of the league’s 32 teams about how to prevent domestic violence and child abuse – for those in the NFL who do not yet know it's…

UPDATES, September 17, 6 AM:  A cacophony of complaints can be heard coming from the general direction of advertisers and sponsors looking to protect their brands —  without severing extremely lucrative ties with domestic-abuse scandal-plagued NFL. So far the growing list includes Anheuser-Busch, McDonalds, Visa…

UPDATE: 12:43 AM: Roc Nation revoked CBS' license to use Jay-Z tune "Run This Town” for its Thursday Night Football package because of the network’s "misuse and misrepresentation of Rihanna's name and participation in connection to the Thursday football package,” among other offenses it cited, prompting CBS to…

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this occasional column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business. FLEMING: I've never seen anything like the craziness that followed the elevator surveillance-camera footage of Ray Rice punching…

UPDATE, 1:45 PM: About 20.8 million viewers watched CBS' first Thursday NFL football game after the pregame package was viewed by 10.63 million. The game, which followed a pregame show-turned-NFL Ray Rice Scandal update, clocked a 7.5/24 demo rating. The overall audience is way up from the 14.2 million viewers CBS…

Chris Brown, who was sentenced to five years of probation for assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna the night before the 2009 Grammy Awards, told MTV News what he would say to former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice — or anyone “dealing with issues of domestic violence.” The video was posted not long after CBS d…

UPDATE, 4: 55 PM: In lieu of comedy bits or narration by Showtime star Don Cheadle over a Jay-Z tune sung by Rihanna, CBS kicked off its Thursday NFL package tonight with an update on the league scandal that cost Ray Rice his Baltimore Ravens running back gig and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell his credibility and…

UPDATED, 4 PM: Keith Olbermann this afternoon stomped all over NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s interview with CBS News, broadcast last night and this morning,  based on this afternoon’s AP report that a law enforcement official says he sent a video of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancee to an NFL executive three…