Why the NFL’s 2026 Schedule Could Look Very Different

The NFL’s 2026 schedule is still about two months away from being released, but already, the highly anticipated slate is shaping up to look rather different than prior years. 

The league’s ongoing push to position more of its 272 regular-season games in standalone broadcast windows, a central feature of the 2025 schedule, will take on even greater prominence in the forthcoming season. Among the moves that are either set or are under active consideration:

• A potential move of the league’s kickoff game involving the Seahawks to a Wednesday slot. That move from the traditional Thursday placement would allow the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia to happen on that day, and it would also help manage the significant time differences between that country and the U.S. The NFL also cannot play on Friday night or Saturday after a Sept. 9 opener this year—as the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 precludes pro football games from happening at those times, beginning with the second Friday of September and continuing through the second Saturday in December. 
• A possible expansion of the traditional Thanksgiving lineup—a core part of the regular-season and one that reached unprecedented viewership in 2025—to include a Thanksgiving Eve game in 2026.  
• A record nine international games in 2026, up from seven in 2025. The locations for those games—three in England, and one each in Germany, Spain, France, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil—have been finalized. So, too, have the home teams for each of those contests. The 49ers will also be the road team for the Australia game against the Rams. Some of the international games could be part of a set of four contests that the NFL regained control of and is selling the rights to as part of its complex and newly closed equity deal with ESPN parent company Disney.

The core reasoning behind the various moves is rather straightforward. The elevated number of international games feeds directly into the NFL’s quickly growing global ambitions. The other broadcast switches, meanwhile, offer the chance to take a Sunday afternoon game that might draw an average of about 20 million viewers and add at least 10 million to that figure—if not more. 

Complex Schedule Math

The expanding spread of the NFL’s schedule means that the league could play the upcoming season on every day of the week with the exception of a Tuesday. 

Other schedule moves in recent seasons have continued to expand the parameters of what’s possible for the NFL scheduling. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a litany of unusual schedule changes during the 2020 season. Much more deliberately, though, the league has grown aggressive in taking advantage of loopholes in the Sports Broadcasting Act, which is aimed in part at protecting high school and college football. 

Continuing to work around that act has allowed the Black Friday afternoon games in recent seasons, as well as early-season games from Brazil on a Friday when the calendar has permitted that. The NFL also played two Wednesday games for Christmas 2024, using four teams that played on the prior Saturday. The way the calendar falls this year does not allow for early-season Friday games, though.

The parameters around the potential Thanksgiving Eve game this year present a new challenge. The close of the annual window for the Sports Broadcasting Act in mid-December has helped enable the unusual Christmas scheduling, but prevents teams from playing the Saturday before Thanksgiving. 

As a result, the Thanksgiving Eve game will likely involve teams coming off a bye week. That would result in the two teams’ bye week getting punctuated somewhat by the earlier-than-normal return to play, countered by potentially an 11-day break on the other side. 

A Thanksgiving Eve game, however, would be part of a massive run for the NFL with games on seven different days during a nine-day stretch.