CBS Sports has reportedly decided to go in another direction and remove Rihanna from their Thursday Night Football opener after the R&B star blasted the network for removing her from the opener last week.
“Beginning this Thursday, we will be moving in a different direction with some elements of our Thursday Night Football open,” said CBS senior vice president of communications Jen Sabatelle in a statement. “We will be using our newly created Thursday Night Football theme music to open our game broadcast.”
Rihanna was removed last week from the opening night feature as the network looked to take a more serious tone before the Ravens-Steelers broadcast in the wake of the looming domestic violence issues in the league.
CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus explained the logic for the change to the open in Week 2 last Thursday.
“It’s important to realize we are not overreacting to this story but it is as big a story as has faced the NFL,” McManus told Richard Deitsch of SI.com on Thursday. “We thought journalistically and from a tone standpoint, we needed to have the appropriate tone and coverage. A lot of the production elements we wanted in the show are being eliminated because of time or tone.”