PALM BEACH, Fla. — An 18-game NFL regular season was not a major topic at this week’s annual meeting, but it’s increasingly looking like a foregone conclusion that team owners will pursue it—and perhaps soon.
Much of this week’s agenda involved pursuing growth in some fashion, whether it be flag football, international play, or media rights. The season itself looks quite likely to ultimately become part of that wave.
“Certainly it’s in the future,” said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. “I know the potential. But there are several things that I can see in the future that are potential. I also know that … things can take time.”
League commissioner Roger Goodell was more measured in his comments late Tuesday on the 18-game season, but he also pointed to that being a topic of rising interest around the league.
“We continue to analyze and discuss this,” Goodell said. “We are thinking about a lot of things in the context of our season structure.”
The commissioner’s remarks on the potential season expansion followed a busy Tuesday morning with the adoption—and tabling—of several proposed rule changes.
Despite these sentiments, getting that 18th game will require a deal with the NFL Players Association, which has been increasingly opposed to the idea, largely due to health and safety concerns. At February’s Super Bowl LIX, union executive director Lloyd Howell said, “When I have talked to players over the last two seasons, no one wants to play an 18th game.”
The expanded regular season is also fundamentally intertwined with the near-certainty that the NFL will opt out of its current domestic media rights deals in 2029. Having more inventory to sell would strengthen a negotiating position that is already unrivaled in U.S. television.
“I’m more optimistic about how it grows here than I was when I first came into the NFL in 1989, and any period in between. I see a lot of positive growth,” Jones said about the league’s future media rights.
More Holiday Gifts
The NFL also confirmed plans to air a third Christmas Day game in 2025, building on the doubleheader held last year. Netflix will again stream two games as part of its current three-year rights deal, while Amazon will also stream one, given that the holiday falls on a Thursday this year. Amazon is the existing rights holder for the Thursday Night Football package.
The move will look to build upon an average of more than 24 million for last year’s doubleheader, which set a league streaming record. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos was on-site for the NFL annual meeting this week, detailing owners on the fast-changing media landscape. Between the existing rights deal, the NFL’s expanding global ambitions, and Netflix’s still-rising status as the world’s largest streamer, the company figures to be a core part of the league’s long-term future.
The teams involved in those games will be revealed with the 2025 schedule release in May.
A New Era in Measurement
The league, meanwhile, formally approved its expected move to end chain crews as the primary means to measure first-down yardage. Instead, the NFL will use Sony’s Hawk-Eye virtual measurement technology to determine the distance between spotted balls and first-down markers.
The Hawk-Eye technology is already used in a variety of other sports for similar applications, particularly for line calls in tennis. NFL chain crews will remain on the sidelines as a backup.
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