As with NFL-related programming across the broadcast board, Fox NFL Sunday was one of the network’s highest-rated offerings last season. This season, Fox is looking to kick an extra point with it via a crossover promotion with the 67th Emmy Awards.

The NFL will be on the red carpet for the football double-header leading up to the Emmys on Sept. 20, announced the awards show’s executive producer Don Mischer at Thursday’s TCA session. The crew will produce live, interstitial awards-related content that will appear during halftime, post-game wrap-ups and during other breaks in the action.

“The game directly before the Emmys is between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys,” Mischer said, “and I hope it goes down to the wire, goes a minute or two into overtime, and then ends so they can kick it right over to us.”

The stunt helps further eventize an awards show whose diversity of nominees reflects television’s rapid ramp-up of original content – a trend that also spreads viewership and therefore public interest in awards performance across a greater number of shows.

“It’s a little more challenging to bring all the viewers under one umbrella,” said Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andy Samberg, who will host the 67th Emmy Awards. Working with a team of writers from IFC’s Comedy Bang! Bang!, Samberg said the hope is to “make bigger jokes that you don’t necessarily need to have seen the shows [they’re about] to appreciate.”

For his part, Samberg said that he loves “having any association with football because they’ll run ads for [the Emmys] during the games and all my friends will see me.” It was an easily tossed-off joke in the moment that hinted at what might be in store for viewers when he hosts on Sept. 20.

“The most important thing in any awards show is your host,” said Mischer. “The host is the critical element in having fun and having these evenings go quickly.” Quickness has rarely been the Emmy Awards’ strong suit, but with the affable Samberg in charge, this year’s show might at least feel that way. With the NFL lead-up and some interesting horse races in the mix such as Jon Hamm’s bid for his first Best Actor win following the final season of Mad Men, people will certainly be tuning in. The challenge, as always, will be to keep them there.

In that regard, “the two things that make the most difference are, who wins and what they say,” said Mischer. “And as a producer you have absolutely no control over that.”

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