NFL finally confirms 2026 schedule release date

Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The wait for the 2026 NFL schedule is almost over.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the NFL plans to release its full schedule next week on Thursday, May 14.

Last month, NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North acknowledged that the release could slip from its traditional second week of May window to the week of May 18, primarily because a five-game streaming package the league was negotiating separately hadn’t been finalized.

That package now appears closer to having a home for the 2026 season, as Netflix is reportedly closing in on a five-game deal that would include the two Christmas games already under contract, the Week 1 Australia game between the Rams and 49ers, a new Thanksgiving Eve game, and a Week 18 Saturday game leading into an ESPN doubleheader.

YouTube, which had been seen as the frontrunner for a separate five-game package, could wind up with nothing after balking at the NFL’s preferred approach of splitting a seven-game block between Netflix and YouTube, per Puck’s John Ourand.

The schedule will also include a slight increase in broadcast exposure compared to last year, according to Sherman. The NFL is currently facing a Justice Department investigation into its media rights practices and a separate inquiry from the FCC, both examining whether the league’s antitrust exemption under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 applies to games sold to streaming services. The league has relied on the fact that about 87% of its games aired on free over-the-air broadcasts last season, a number it appears set to improve this year. Fox is reportedly in line to air a third Christmas Day game, and the league has other mechanisms to increase the broadcast percentage.

Either way, the schedule will be out before any of that gets resolved, as Mike North told the It’s Always Game Day in Buffalo podcast that the final call belongs to Roger Goodell.

“It doesn’t get finalized until the commissioner of the National Football League says it’s finalized,” North said. “If we walk in there on May 11th or 12th and he’s not happy with where we are, he’ll send us back downstairs, and we’ll keep grinding.”

To date, only two 2026 regular-season games have been officially placed: the 49ers at Rams in Australia on Sept. 10 and the Ravens at Cowboys in Brazil on Sept. 27. Everything else — the prime time slate, the international schedule, the streaming matchups, the Christmas tripleheader — gets filled in next Thursday.

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