PHOENIX — After another landmark season, the NFL is now looking to build on its accelerating growth wave with a set of new initiatives poised to take effect this year.
Team owners and league personnel will hold their 2026 annual meeting here this week, relishing a fresh set of milestones from last season that included the largest regular-season viewership since 1989, a single-game audience high outside of the playoffs, and another set of streaming records.
Aiming to advance those markers even more, the NFL has an aggressive agenda for the next three days. Among the items on deck:
- Votes on a series of proposed rule changes, including the use of the NFL officiating department to aid what is increasingly expected to be a set of replacement officials in place next season. The league and the NFL Referees Association remain in a troubled set of labor talks, and the current collective bargaining agreement expires in May.
- Potential ratification of two resolutions, one of which would allow teams to trade draft picks up to five years in the future.
- The expected awarding of Super Bowl LXIII in 2029 to Las Vegas and Allegiant Stadium. The market last held the Super Bowl in 2024, in turn establishing a series of event records, including on the secondary ticket market. The next two Super Bowls are already set for Los Angeles and Atlanta.
- A potential expansion of preseason media rights at the local level, enabling individual teams to license the exhibition games to streaming platforms. In fans’ insatiable appetite for NFL content, last year’s preseason viewership hit a seven-year high.
- Discussion around the league’s media rights, and the rising expectation that the current deals with Amazon, CBS, ESPN, Fox, and NBC will be reopened.
- More planning for a larger-than-ever slate of nine international games in 2026 that includes first-time trips in the regular season to Australia and France. That upcoming game in Melbourne, in particular, has reshaped the beginning of the regular season schedule.
- Further preparation for next month’s NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, which is expected to draw between 500,000 and 700,000 fans, and is fueling historic spikes in local lodging prices.
- A review of the recent flurry of free-agent signing activity that included a record $5.8 billion in contract spending in just the first four days of this year’s window—with ever-rising levels of guaranteed money.
- A vote on an ownership succession plan for the Raiders. Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban is set to gain a first right of refusal to acquire the franchise when owner Mark Davis or his heirs elect to sell.
Also on deck is a discussion around pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in both on-field matters and the fan experience.
“This year, we’ll be talking a lot about technology, the application of artificial intelligence, and other new, cutting-edge technologies to try to improve the game, for the game’s purpose, as well as for the enjoyment of our fans,” said NFL EVP Jeff Miller.
