Premier League Embraces NFL-Style Flex Scheduling for 2025–26

The concept of flex scheduling, for years a core element of the NFL, is set to take on heightened importance in the Premier League.

The top flight of English pro soccer unveiled its 2025–26 schedule Wednesday, and warned “there is an increased likelihood of Premier League fixtures moving at relatively short notice” during the season. The additional forthcoming shifts are due primarily to an unprecedented nine Premier League teams playing in European-level competition during the upcoming season.

Six clubs—Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle, and Tottenham Hotspur—qualified for the upcoming iteration of the UEFA Champions League, while Aston Villa and Crystal Palace will compete in the Europa League, and Nottingham Forest is in the Conference League. 

The FA Cup, a separate English competition that ultimately feeds into UEFA Europa League, could also prompt some schedule changes for the Premier League. 

“While the Premier League celebrates this success, it will come with an impact on the scheduling of league matches,” the league said in a statement.

Already, the Premier League announces specific game times, and any revised dates, for the season on a monthly basis, with at least five weeks of notice common. That rolling schedule for confirming game dates and times takes broadcast considerations into account, like in the NFL.

Greater Unrest

The increased level of forthcoming change also arrives amid fast-rising fan unrest about ongoing ticket price increases across the Premier League. Thirteen of 20 clubs in the league increased prices for the upcoming season, and though down from a comparable 19 clubs last year, the moves continue to spark fan protests under the hashtag of #StopExploitingLoyalty.

Liverpool, the defending Premier League champion, will begin the season Aug. 15 at home against AFC Bournemouth. 

The 2025–26 Premier League season, meanwhile, will be the first in a four-year media-rights term with Sky Sports and TNT Sports worth $9 billion, representing the largest sports-rights deal in U.K. history. The new domestic deals have a new provision in which all matches taking place outside of a Saturday 3 p.m. “closed period” will be broadcast live, a move that will involve at least 267 of the 380 league matches this season.

That Saturday afternoon slot is designed to protect attendance at lower-level soccer competition, not unlike the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 in the U.S. The NFL continues to find creative ways to work around that measure, aimed in part to preserve high school and college football. 

The upcoming Premier League season will conclude May 24, 2026, giving top players also on national teams a turnaround of less than three weeks before the start of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.