Is NFL punting new TV deals to next year?

That’s a pretty sizable gap in asking price, and one that could take some time to hammer out.

However, last month, Puck’s John Ourand reported that the NFL “wants to have new deals in place before the new season starts in September.” He also added that “any new contract would take effect immediately.”

But here we are, days away from May, and all is quiet on the NFL media rights front.

Why does May matter? Well, as the NFL announced during last week’s NFL Draft, the schedule for next season will be released in May. That schedule, of course, is directly tied to the broadcast agreements the NFL has with the networks. And if the league wants these new deals to “take effect immediately,” then one of three things must be true: either these new deals will be done before the schedule is released in May (very unlikely), these new deals will be done by September, but won’t be different enough from the current agreements to impact the schedule in any material way (feasible), or the NFL is simply going to punt the new deals until the 2027 season, giving itself another 12 months to negotiate agreements that will be ready for next year’s schedule release (also feasible).

Considering there has been no recent movement on the CBS deal and the NFL seemingly hasn’t even engaged any of the other four partners — NBC Sports president Jon Miller said the league has not yet approached the network about new media rights deals during an interview last week — time is running out for the league to reach new deals prior to the schedule release.

And out of the two feasible options, new deals being struck by September or the NFL punting to next year, I’d contend punting to next year is the more likely scenario. There are a few reasons why.

First off, while the primary reason the NFL is attempting to renegotiate its media rights deals early is to secure more money, the league also wants to secure some flexibility in how it allocates games, ideally opening up more inventory for streamers the league sees as the long-term future of its distribution model. Cobbling together some hastily agreed-upon deals before September isn’t really the NFL’s MO. Such deals would necessarily have to retrofit to the already released schedule, at least to a degree, potentially preventing the NFL from moving more inventory to streamers down the line.

Conventional wisdom suggests that, should network partners like CBS and Fox reach a new agreement with the league, they’d need to sacrifice some inventory to keep those deals affordable. That inventory would then be taken and sold to streamers by the league. For this to be hypothetically feasible in the period after the May schedule release but before the season begins in September, the league and network would need to codify how much inventory the networks will lose and, crucially, when they will lose it, since it won’t be the 2026 season. It’s not impossible to imagine this could happen if the NFL were really dead-set on getting deals done this summer. Still, it certainly complicates matters to negotiate such terms after the 2026 schedule has already been released.

Secondly, broadcast networks currently feel emboldened by the federal government’s various probes into how the NFL sells its media rights. Whereas network executives were at one point pledging fealty to the NFL and publicly discussing the lengths to which they’d go to keep the league, a more measured tone has now been struck, with some executives going as far as to say they believe they’re already paying “market” price for NFL games.

While it’s difficult to imagine a world in which the federal government actually does something to upend the NFL’s business model, it has at least served as leverage for the networks and as a distraction the league must deal with during its negotiations. In other words, it can slow down the negotiating process. And by delaying these deals by even one season, networks stand to save billions of dollars.

Finally, the last reason the NFL is more likely to punt to next year rather than finish these deals this offseason is pretty straightforward. The league and the broadcast partners are too far away on price. If networks think something in the 25% range is fair for an increase, while the NFL is looking to double its rights fees, there’s a lot of discussion to be had.

Going back to the first point, some of that will likely mean a shift in how the league allocates its games, with broadcasters agreeing to a smaller fee increase for fewer games. But that’s the type of negotiation that requires time to hammer out details. It’s not something that can be rushed overnight.

And to think the NFL could somehow approach all four of its primary broadcasters, none of which are in active talks with the league, and get new deals done in the next three months seems like too tall a task. Perhaps I’m wrong, but all signs point to next year as the first season under the NFL’s new deals, not 2026.

The post Is NFL punting new TV deals to next year? appeared first on Awful Announcing.