The NFL preseason is an interminable month of televised scrimmages, but the league knows at least one way to minimize its misery.

The National Football League kicks off its preseason tonight, and just about nobody’s happy about it. Instead of just wrapping the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio, into a week’s slate of preseason games, the NFL makes it a fifth preseason game for the participating teams. That means this year the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals play five preseason games instead of four, have an extra week of practices and give their players an extra week of meaningless football that needlessly exposes them to injury and jeopardizes their careers.

Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald know this — and know they don’t receive an extra dime for their efforts — and will be sitting out the Hall of Fame Game .

Why do they and Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians think their absence is OK? Because the NFL itself has already rendered the game worthless. Last year, the NFL canceled the Hall of Fame Game between the Green Bay Packers and Indianapolis Colts after complications with paint in the end zones and at midfield left the field at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in dangerous condition .

In 2011, the Hall of Fame Game was canceled after the league locked out its players during a labor dispute. In 2012, NFL broadcast partner NBC shifted the game to the NFL Network so it wouldn’t interfere with Summer Olympics coverage. To avoid a repeat of last year’s field debacle, this year’s game has been moved from Sunday to Thursday — typically the NFL’s least-popular day among viewers — to ensure the field isn’t trampled during Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. Even after a move from CBS to NBC last year, the NFL’s Thursday night games still ranked among the least-watched during a 2016 season in which total viewership dropped 8% from 2015.

So why push a completely meaningless Hall of Fame Game that some stars won’t play in and that does little to determine which draft picks and free agents make the team? After all, baseball killed its own midseason Hall of Fame game a decade ago after a litany of player complaints and at least nine rainouts.

Well, it’s not only the unofficial return of the NFL after a half-year absence, but it is part of a package of NFL content for which NBC pays roughly $1.1 billion each year through 2022. That includes the regular-season NFL Kickoff Game, Sunday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, a Thanksgiving game, playoff games and Super Bowl games in 2018 and 2021.

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Also, the Hall of Fame Game can be a huge value to NBC and the league when it’s executed perfectly. The Hall of Fame Game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings in 2015, the last time the game was played, drew 11 million viewers. That not only won the night by more than 2 million viewers, but it was the most-watched broadcast of the week. That’s a bigger audience than this year’s MLB All-Star Game (8.6 million), the National Basketball Association All-Star Game (7.8 million), the NFL’s own Pro Bowl 7.4 million and the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Finals average audience through all six games (4.7 million).

While those numbers look great, the game actually has to air — on a Sunday, no less — to make them happen. This year’s game won’t get that luxury, and the NFL and NBC’s flakiness about the game within the last five years make it look like one awfully expendable cash cow. A few years back, the NFL and the players union argued the merits of trimming the preseason slate to two weeks while expanding the regular season to 18. While the players wouldn’t go for the latter, trimming the Hall of Fame Game would be a great way to get started on the former.