The NFL’s team owners have not yet completed a contract extension with commissioner Roger Goodell. But they expect to finalize an extension with him in the coming months to keep him in place to oversee the negotiations for new broadcasting deals and a collective bargaining agreement with players that could include an 18-game season, according to four people familiar with the owners’ views.
Goodell’s current contract expires in March 2027, when he will be 68. He completed a three-year extension with the owners in October 2023.
It’s not clear when this extension will be finalized and, barring last-minute complications, announced. The NFL has scheduled a special owners meeting for Aug. 26 in Atlanta for a potential ratification vote on the proposed $9.612 billion sale of the Seahawks from the estate of late owner Paul G. Allen to a group led by the family of venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. After that, the owners have regularly scheduled quarterly meetings in October in New York and in December virtually.
The October meeting could be a reasonable target, given that Goodell’s 2023 extension was announced during an October owners meeting in Manhattan. Whatever the timing, the owners seem convinced that the deal with Goodell will get done.
One of the people with knowledge of the owners’ views called it “critical” for the extension with Goodell to be completed, with the labor and broadcast negotiations looming. Another confirmed the confidence level is high that the deal with Goodell will be finalized. Two others said earlier they expect the owners to agree to an extension with Goodell, but they aren’t sure of the timing.
The NFL declined to comment.
It does not appear there are any major stumbling blocks in the negotiations between the owners and Goodell. There is no known opposition among the owners to this extension. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones expressed opposition to a contract extension for Goodell in 2017. These negotiations have proceeded quietly since The Athletic reported in May 2025 that the owners were set to approve an extension with Goodell that day, then revised its report to say the owners’ consideration was pushed back to a later day.
Why It Matters
The league and owners have been waiting to launch formal negotiations with the NFL Players Association and its recently elected executive director, JC Tretter, on a new CBA. The current labor deal runs through the 2030 season and specifically prohibits the league and owners from unilaterally extending the regular season.
Some owners had once been hopeful of having an 18-game season as soon as 2027. But that timetable has grown increasingly unrealistic. Lloyd Howell, the NFLPA’s former executive director, told The Washington Post in July 2024 that the union had engaged in informal, high-level discussions with the NFL about an 18-game season. But Howell resigned in July 2025 amid a series of controversies.
David White served as the interim executive director until Tretter was elected by player representatives in March. Formal negotiations on an 18-game season and other CBA issues have not begun, people with knowledge of the situation said recently.
The NFL’s current broadcasting deals, completed in 2021, are worth more than $110 billion in rights fees over 11 years. The league can opt out of those deals early. The NBA’s and WNBA’s broadcasting deals, completed in 2024 and worth about $76 billion over 11 years, potentially pushed the NFL’s price tag meaningfully higher, given its significantly larger viewership.
What Comes Next
If Goodell signs another three-year extension, he would be 71 at the end of that contract. The owners then could face the issue of a succession plan. Late Colts owner Jim Irsay previously mentioned the possibility of splitting the job following Goodell’s tenure into a chief executive for business and a commissioner overseeing football matters.
“There are a lot of challenges out there,” Goodell said at a news conference in New York when his 2023 extension was announced. “But there are also a lot of opportunities for us. And we’re focused on how we make the NFL better every day, how we’ve become a global sport. I think some very exciting things are happening in that context. I feel really good about where the National Football League is today. But we don’t sit around and tell ourselves that.”
Joe Lockhart, formerly the NFL’s top spokesperson, said in 2017 that Goodell planned to retire by 2024. But Goodell declined to confirm those retirement plans that day and said when his 2023 extension was completed that he didn’t know when he would retire.
“We’ll see what the future holds,” Goodell said then. “I don’t know. We’ll see. So I’m not making any commitments other than, for the next three years, I’m going to bust my butt.”
The owners elected Goodell commissioner in 2006. He is booed by fans annually during the NFL Draft. He became a polarizing figure during controversies over disciplinary cases involving former Ravens running back Ray Rice and other players, and amid the Spygate and Deflategate scandals with the Patriots and the Bountygate affair with the Saints.
But Goodell has sought to expand the NFL’s global appeal through international games, and he has further entrenched it as the nation’s most popular and prosperous sports league. The Seahawks sale price represents a 59% increase over the $6.05 billion that a group led by Josh Harris paid to purchase the Commanders from Daniel Snyder in 2023, the previous record for an NFL team in a change-of-control transaction.
Goodell’s salary is no longer publicly disclosed now that the league office and the NFL’s management council no longer have tax-exempt status. His 2023 extension did not require a formal ratification vote by the owners because they had authorized their compensation committee to negotiate a deal with Goodell.
