NFL International Slate Gives Legacy Networks Bigger Stage

The nine total international games set a league record, and are two more than the seven played in 2025. The announcement of these contests followed prior game reveals this week by NBC, Fox, Amazon, and ESPN, and it preceded the full schedule drop set for Thursday.

Aside from the Jaguars’ separate agreement to play part of their schedule each year in London, NFC teams will be the designated home team in each of the international games this year as part of the NFL’s schedule formula. That rotation gives each NFC team a ninth home game in 2026, regardless of whether it’s played internationally or in their own stadium.

Broadcast Shifts

In past seasons, the NFL’s international play was primarily focused on games shown Sunday morning in the U.S. and aired on the NFL Network. The league’s complex equity deal with ESPN, however, returned four games to the league to be resold and brought the NFL Network under Disney-led operation, and is helping prompt the changes now unfolding across the schedule.

As a result, each of the legacy broadcast network rights holders is participating in the international schedule this year—with some of those matchups getting into prominent late-afternoon and primetime slots. Those networks have also received additional exclusive broadcast windows with the league as the NFL faces heightened political and regulatory pressure about its growing embrace of streamers.

These placements for the international games have all but guaranteed record levels of viewership already. Six of the seven NFL’s 2025 international games were shown on the NFL Network and averaged 6.2 million viewers per game—up 32% from 2024 and a record figure, but also something certain to be smashed by the audience for this year’s global schedule.

In particular, the increasing embrace of the legacy networks could more than triple the audience for some of these international games compared to prior coverage on the NFL Network.

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