The Republican National Committee opens its two-day convention at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Wednesday, 9 September, in what it is billing as the party’s largest gathering in ten years and the first midterm convention it has ever staged.
It also opens against the biggest two nights on the American sports calendar. Night one sits under the NFL Kickoff, a Super Bowl rematch between the New England Patriots and the reigning champion Seattle Seahawks on NBC and Peacock. Night two collides with a San Francisco 49ers versus Los Angeles Rams game streamed live from Australia on Netflix.
CBS and CNN have made their choice already: neither will carry most of the two-day convention live, according to Axios. NBC, ABC and CBS all declined to comment on their plans when Axios asked. The one exception is Fox News Media, which has committed to wall-to-wall live programming from Dallas across both evenings, with a two-hour edition of Hannity anchoring 9pm to 11pm Eastern.
The number that settled it
The math for a network programmer is not close. Last year’s NFL Kickoff between the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles drew 28.3 million viewers, Axios reported. Opening night of the 2024 party conventions averaged around 19 million.
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“You know how bonkers this idea is?”
Scott MacFarlane, chief Washington correspondent at Meidas Touch News, put the question directly on CNN.
“You know how bonkers this idea is?”
MacFarlane also questioned whether the RNC could fill the 20,000-seat American Airlines Center on a night the country would be watching the season opener.
The RNC pivots to influencers
RNC organisers have effectively conceded the television fight and are pitching the event at social media instead. Influencers have been invited into the hall, and the party plans to push clips out on TikTok, Facebook and X in the hope that Donald Trump and JD Vance go viral on the same nights the football is on. Organisers argue that fragmented viewing habits would have shrunk the convention audience whatever the schedule.
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The RNC has also opened part of the hall to the public for the first time through a free lottery on GOPConvention.com, with winners notified on 4 September. Programming runs from 3pm to 9pm local time on both days and features Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dr. Mehmet Oz, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Ted Cruz.
Vance is scheduled to speak at 8pm local time in Dallas each night, followed by Trump’s closing keynote at 9pm local time, under the full RNC schedule confirmed by the party.
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