The Eagles’ defense of their Super Bowl LIX title will begin against America’s Team.

NBC Sports announced its coverage plans Monday morning for the league’s Sept. 4 kickoff game from Lincoln Financial Field featuring a Cowboys-Eagles clash. As has been the league’s custom for more than two decades, the defending Super Bowl champion opens the NFL’s season with a primetime showcase at home, and the game in Philadelphia will feature a matchup involving one of the league’s top rivalries. 

The kickoff game is the start of a series of announcements planned over the next two days of key games involving each of the NFL’s domestic media-rights holders. Part of Tuesday’s planned unveilings will include the 2025 schedule of international contests led in part by a Sept. 5 game in São Paulo involving the Chiefs and Chargers that will be shown on YouTube. 

Those announcements will culminate with the release of the full 2025 regular-season schedule Wednesday night. That slate will feature a series of notable changes from last year, including an expanded presence of both international and Christmas games, and additional latitude for flex scheduling into Amazon’s Thursday Night Football. 

The NFL’s focus on maximizing the audience for every one of its 272 regular-season games also comes after a 2% decline in regular-season ratings in 2024.

Speculation on which of the Eagles’ eight 2025 home opponents would be in the kickoff game, among both fans and the league’s media partners, began immediately after the team’s overwhelming victory over the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. 

Though the Eagles’ 2025 home schedule features other major opponents and 2024 playoff teams such as the Broncos, Commanders, Lions, and Rams, the selection of the Cowboys to start the season leans in to decades of history between Philadelphia and Dallas. Though recently supplanted by the Chiefs as the league’s top viewership draw, the Cowboys still are a major attraction nationally.

The team has also been in the midst of a significant transition with its roster, most recently bringing in wide receiver George Pickens following a trade with the Steelers.

There is plenty of hype around NBC Sports’s programming plans for February 2026, but also some very real expectations and serious financial implications for what now stands as one of the most important moments in network history.

NBC Sports was already planning for one of the most significant confluences in modern sports media history, with Super Bowl LX, the Milan-Cortina Olympics, and the 2026 NBA All-Star Game all happening on the network over 17 days next winter. Parent company NBCUniversal, however, took those expectations to the stratosphere Monday in an upfront presentation to advertisers in New York, calling those events a foundation of “the greatest collection of content that has ever been assembled by one media company.”

“Sports is definitely having a moment in the industry,” said Mark Marshall, NBCUniversal chairman of global advertising and partnerships. “As some sports are moving to streaming, and other platforms are adding a game or two to their schedule, this idea of sports and streaming is not new to us. In fact, Peacock was built on sports.”

Beyond talking points, however, there is some real heft behind the boasts. NBC Sports is buttressing its NBA coverage with a series of new features on Peacock and is bringing back basketball legend Michael Jordan as a “special contributor” for the NBA coverage. The network also brought Spurs center Victor Wembanyama to the upfront to help tout the forthcoming coverage. The league is also actively considering another retooling of the format of the forthcoming All-Star Game in Los Angeles.

The NFL coverage will start with a significant draw of the defending champion Eagles and divisional rival Cowboys for the kickoff game Sept. 4, continue with Sunday Night Football that is seeking a 15th straight season as the most-watched program in U.S. primetime television, and then include an exclusive stream on Peacock during Week 17 of the regular season. That latter game, a Saturday matchup on Dec. 27, is being branded as the “Peacock Holiday Exclusive” and serves as another important forerunner to Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, Calif.

The 2026 Olympic Games, meanwhile, stand to benefit from a six-hour time difference between the U.S. East Coast and Italy that is much more favorable than the last two Winter Olympics, each held in Asia. 

The Big Money

Back in February, Fox grossed more than $800 million just from Super Bowl LIX, which drew the best-ever audience on U.S. television. Putting the three major events together, NBCUniversal and its parent company are positioned to generate well into the 10 figures in gross advertising revenue.

Comcast was already increasingly leaning in to its sports portfolio to buttress the company, as some of its core connectivity products fall under increased pressure.

Next year, meanwhile, will be the 100th anniversary of the NBC broadcast network, something the company plans to lean in to heavily.

His Airness is back—again.

More than 30 years after Michael Jordan announced his return as an NBA player with the famous two-word statement, “I’m back,” the former superstar and NBC Sports used a similar structure to unveil his involvement with the network as a “special contributor.”

Jordan will be part of NBC Sports’s NBA coverage as it regains live rights to the league this fall after a 23-year absence. The network made the announcement Monday morning at an upfront presentation to advertisers in New York.

NBC Sports did not detail exactly how much Jordan will be involved on air, but the role and the designation as a “special contributor” would appear to be less extensive than the most obvious parallel: Fox Sports’s weekly use of NFL icon Tom Brady as its No. 1 game analyst.

The retaining of Jordan, however, dips heavily into 1990s nostalgia, a heyday for NBC Sports’s prior NBA coverage and on the network on which the Jordan-led Bulls won each of their six NBA titles. Among several post-playing basketball endeavors, Jordan most recently was the Hornets owner, but he sold the franchise in 2023.

“Sorry I can’t be with you,” Jordan said in a brief, taped statement at the upfront. “The NBA on NBC was a meaningful part of my career, and I’m excited about being a special contributor to the project. I’m looking forward to seeing you all when the NBA on NBC launches this fall.”

The Jordan announcement adds to NBC Sports’s presentation at the upfront of its extensive NBA plans on Peacock.