For its Thursday Night Football show, CBS decided to cancel Rihanna and Jay-Z's performance of their new hit song, "Run This Town," after the video of Ray Rice punching his wife created a stir on the NFL.  

A Sports Illustrated report said that on Wednesday, the CBS Sports officials opted to start the program with Norah O'Donnell's interview with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell instead of Rihanna and Jay-Z's number.

Alex Riethmiller, spokesperson for the NFL Network, which is a CBS partner for the broadcast of the Thursday's show, also told USA Today that the change in the format of the show was "part of a number of changes made to Thursday's broadcast to make room to discuss the Rice situation."

For his part, CBS Sports chair, Sean McManus, said that they do not want to "overreact" on the incident and story involving Rice.

"It's important to realize we are not overreacting to this story but it is as big a story as has faced the NFL. 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," McManus told Sports Illustrated.

McManus also denied that the NFL had a take on the format of the pregame show. "If you listened to the questions asked by Norah O'Donnell, that is indicative of our position with respect to asking the hard questions and reporting the story," he added.

According to an E! Online report, the NFL does not seem to want to send the wrong message by letting Rihanna, who also got involved in a domestic violence dispute with former beau, Chris Brown, five years ago, do the opening of the show, especially now that the league is still embroiled in the ongoing controversy. 

Despite all the controversy, the Baltimore Ravens defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers with a 6-26 victory even with the absence and suspension of Rice. According to The Guardian, the winning team was able to "survive the traveling circus" surrounding the Rice story which is still continuing and is expected to still be a long debate and battle in the football industry.