The NFL will announce the 2026 regular-season schedule on May 14 during a primetime special on ESPN2 and NFL Network. Key rights holders will present their programming plans leading up to the schedule release.
The ramp up toward the release of the 2026 NFL regular-season schedule is accelerating, and the changes in that slate continue to grow.
The NFL said late Thursday in an email blast to fans that the âschedule release is almost here.â League sources then confirmed to Front Office Sports on Friday that the full slate will be announced on Thursday, May 14, in a primetime special on ESPN2 and NFL Network. That date is in line with whatâs been expected for weeks and matches the leagueâs timing in recent years to unveil the highly anticipated schedule.
Before that, though, each of the NFLâs key rights holders will hold their upfront presentations with advertisers to detail their programming plans for the 2026â27 television season. NFL games will be front and center in those events, as the league remains by far the most-watched content in all of U.S. television,.
NBC is first up in that sequence, and will hold its upfront Monday morning at Radio City Music Hall. Fox and Amazon will follow later on Monday, and most, if not all, of them are expected to reveal at least one key NFL game on their respective broadcast schedules. The other networks will then likely follow during their upfronts with their own âbreadcrumbâ games that will highlight their slates and precede the full schedule release.
Among the other developing changes surrounding the regular-season schedule:
As the NFL prepares to announce the schedule, it continues to face rising political pressure from its growing embrace of streamers such as Netflix and YouTube.
There are at least four major efforts unfolding in the nationâs capital probing the NFLâs media strategy. Most recently, league EVP of media distribution Hans Schroeder met with the Federal Communications Commission to detail the leagueâs continued focus on broadcast televisionâincluding its long-time practice of showing every game over the air in the home markets of the competing teams.
A key driver in much of that activity from Washington is seen as stemming from Fox, one of the leagueâs longest-running rights holders. Despite that tie now in its fourth decade, the network is bracing for a sharp increase in its NFL rights fees, as are other networks. Fox, however, is particularly exposed as it has among the smallest market capitalizations of all the major media companies with league rights.
In February, Fox CEO and executive chair Lachlan Murdoch said the company is prepared to ârebalanceâ its networkâs sports rights portfolio to keep the NFL.
For months, NFL sources have pointed to Fox as a key player in the rising political scrutiny. The Wall Street Journal then put a finer point on that, reporting that network chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch, Lachlanâs father, met in February with U.S. President Donald Trump to make the case that if streamers gained rights to more NFL games it would âkillâ broadcast networks.
The post Eyes on Networks and Streamers as NFL Readies Schedule Release appeared first on Front Office Sports.
The NFL will release the 2026 regular-season schedule on May 14 during a primetime special.
NBC, Fox, and Amazon will present NFL games during their upfronts, with NBC being the first to hold its event.
The NFL's schedule release is crucial for advertisers as it highlights the league's programming plans for the upcoming television season.
The NFL remains the most-watched content in all of U.S. television, significantly outpacing other programming.
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