Super Bowl Week Kicks Off

Morning Edition

February 2, 2026

Good morning from San Francisco. Or is it Santa Clara? Or San Jose? All of the above. The FOS team has descended on the Bay Area for Super Bowl week, with events spread across the region—from downtown SF to Levi’s Stadium. All week, we’ll bring you news and interviews from the scene. We’ll also have a big set on Radio Row, thanks to our partners at Toyota—stop by and say hi if you’re around. Today’s lead story: Getting you up to speed on the biggest questions facing the league. We’ll seek to get as many answers as we can.

—Dan Roberts and Eric Fisher

FOS at the Super Bowl

With the Super Bowl days away, the Seahawks’ focus is being tested by the Raiders’ expected move for Seattle assistant coach Klint Kubiak. Read the story.
Super Bowl LX resale prices are dropping in a hurry, with entry tickets down nearly 30%. Read the story.
The NFL is bringing its America 250 celebration to the Super Bowl, with special jersey patches for both teams. Read the story.
Patriots haters are surely sick of seeing them in the Super Bowl yet again. But this is a new era, and it might be time to hate them a little less. Read Dan Roberts’s column.

Big Questions for Roger Goodell As Super Bowl Week Kicks Off

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

SAN FRANCISCO — As the NFL begins the run-up to Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium between the Seahawks and Patriots, the NFL is awash in rising revenues, growing viewership, unchallenged popularity in U.S. sports, and the rising potential of even more money to come.

There are still plenty of key issues surrounding the league, however, as commissioner Roger Goodell conducts his annual Super Bowl press conference on Monday.

That yearly tradition formerly was held toward the end of Super Bowl week, but the league moved it to a Monday scheduling in 2024, in part to keep the media focus of the week on the upcoming game itself.

Still, Goodell will have no shortage of critical topics to address as the NFL approaches inflection points on most of the core areas of its operations. Among them:

Media rights: The league has already signaled that it will exercise an opt-out after the 2029 season, with talks to begin as soon as this year. How that unfolds, particularly in the wake of historic viewership this season, has massive implications on both the league and its rights holders.
18-game season: Last spring, an expanded regular season was seen as inevitable, but not necessarily imminent. A potential timetable for implementation, however, could be moving up, as Patriots owner Robert Kraft recently told a Boston radio station, with great certainty, that “every team will go to 18 [regular season] games and two [preseason games].” That matter, of course, will need to be collectively bargained with the NFL Players Association.
International growth: Fundamentally intertwined with a larger regular season is the possibility of every team in the league playing at least one non-U.S. game every season. Kraft, in the same interview, said, “We’re going to push like the dickens now to make international more important with us.” How that would happen in a way that advances the NFL’s global ambitions but remains mindful of player health and safety concerns will be the key test. The league played seven international games in 2025, a number set to increase this year.
ESPN deal: The NFL is now a 10% equity holder in the Disney-controlled outlet following the closing of a large-scale deal with the sports media giant. What will be the future relationship between the two titans?
Bears: The league’s team in the No. 3 U.S. media market is now in the middle of a two-state bidding war between Illinois and Indiana over a future domed stadium. Goodell has personally toured sites in both states. To what degree will he get further involved in the situation?
Domed stadiums: The Chicago situation is just one of a fast-growing trend around the league toward building indoor facilities, one also playing out in Tennessee, Cleveland, Washington, Kansas City, and Denver. Those venues, while potentially bringing bigger benefits for their home communities, also promise to help shift the nature of the league as it becomes more of an indoor sport.
Bad Bunny: Goodell has stood firmly behind the Super Bowl LX halftime show performer, saying last fall that the Puerto Rican superstar was “one of the leading and most popular entertainers in the world.” As the game approaches, complaints about the show and the selection of Bad Bunny are beginning to resurface among political conservatives.
Broader politics: Compared to the first term of U.S. President Donald Trump, the league has adeptly managed to stay more out of the crosshairs of the White House. Is the increasingly unpredictable nature of Trump headed for a renewed collision, though, with the NFL’s growing popularity?
Giants: The long-struggling club recently hired coaching veteran John Harbaugh, signaling a potential new era, but co-owner Steve Tisch is part of the newly released Epstein files. Will the commissioner intervene here?

Goodell’s media session is set for Monday afternoon at the San Jose Convention Center, just before key players and coaches for the Seahawks and Patriots arrive there for the Super Bowl Opening Night that is accessible to fans.

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What Else We’re Watching

Caitlin Clark is optimistic that a WNBA CBA deal will be done soon, and the season could stay on schedule. Read the story.
Newly released DOJ documents show dozens of major sports figures connected to Jeffrey Epstein. Read the story.
Record crowds flocked to the Australian Open, fueling organizers’ ambitions—and fans’ frustrations. Read the story.

NFL, ESPN Finalize Landmark Deal After Federal Approval

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

SAN FRANCISCO — The NFL, ESPN, and network parent company Disney have closed on their large-scale agreement that gives the league equity in the sports media giant and ESPN control over the NFL Network.

Nearly six months after first striking the expansive deal, the parties received federal government approval, including from the U.S. Department of Justice, on the pact. ESPN will acquire NFL Network, as well as rights to distribute NFL RedZone to pay-TV operators, while the league gains a 10% equity stake in ESPN—a holding valued in the billions of dollars. The network will also take over the NFL’s fantasy football operations and merge them with its own.

The full changeover for NFL Network will not happen until April, and those employees of NFL Media who work there will become part of ESPN. Front Office Sports previously reported the deal was firmly in line for an early 2026 completion.

“With the closing, we will begin integrating NFL employees into ESPN in the months ahead,” ESPN and the NFL said in a joint statement. “As we look to the future, NFL fans can look forward to expanded NFL programming, greater access to NFL Network, innovative fantasy experiences, and unparalleled coverage of America’s most popular sport.”

NFL Network, created in 2003 and now holding nearly 50 million subscribers, will become part of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer streaming service that debuted last summer.

With the combination of ESPN with NFL Network, the outlet will now show 28 NFL games per season, including three from NFL Network, and the most in ESPN’s history. The league, however, retained rights to four international games previously shown by the NFL Network and will now look to resell those rights—potentially to one or more streaming outlets.

The NFL, meanwhile, will still operate NFL Films, NFL.com, and other related digital assets, and it will continue to produce NFL RedZone.

The agreement leaves ESPN’s equity split of 72% controlled by Disney and its subsidiaries, 18% by Hearst, and 10% with the NFL.

Looking Ahead

The deal’s completion arrived about 36 hours before Disney is due to report its fiscal first quarter earnings early Monday.

In addition to hearing more about this NFL pact and the progress of ESPN’s DTC efforts, investors are eager to know more about the succession plan for outgoing CEO Bob Iger. His current contract ends Dec. 31, 2026, and Disney is expected to reveal its future leadership plan well before then. The Wall Street Journal reported that Iger will also end daily management of Disney before the end of the year.

The Super Bowl LX week in the Bay Area, meanwhile, will culminate with a large-scale handoff toward next year’s NFL title game in Los Angeles, which will be the first aired by ESPN. That Super Bowl in February 2027, a landmark event in ESPN’s 46-year history, will be further buttressed by the inclusion of the NFL assets.

Separately, the league expected to opt out of its current media rights deals early, including with ESPN, and begin talks this year on new and more lucrative pacts.