• by Wayne Friedman , November 30, 2015

The film, starring Will Smith, is about the doctor who fought against the NFL, which tried to suppress his research on brain damage and the long-term medical issues football players faced.

National TV advertising for the film from Nov. 17 through mid-day Nov. 30 amounted to $5.93 million -- with the biggest chunk of those dollars going to NFL programming, $2.2 million, according to iSpot.tv.

College football programming is next at $626,820; then comes NBA basketball, $556,754; Fox’s “Empire,” at $479,658 and Univision’s Latin Grammy Awards, $301.988.

The movie -- which will open on Christmas Day -- has sent the majority of its national TV advertising to CBS so far -- $1.22 million. Fox is next at $1.0 million; ESPN, $934,353; NBC, $605,404; and Univision, $380,870.

Research shows that Thursday night (from special Thanksgiving day games; CBS’ “Thursday Night Football”; and Univision’s “Latin Grammy Awards”) and Sunday (from CBS, Fox, and NBC run NFL games) are the top time periods where the movie has been advertised.

Some TV/media executives worried that pressure from the NFL would mean that few, if any, NFL TV networks would be airing the TV advertising for the movie.