Sporticast: Fox, NBC Add More NFL Games

(Lorenzo Gordon)

On the 551st Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Kurt Badenhausen discuss some of the biggest sports business stories of the week, including Fox and NBC adding more games for the 2026 season.

The network upfronts gave NBC a chance to tout its Sunday Night Football, the No. 1 rated show on primetime television for 15 straight years. Peacock also revealed the first SNF matchup next season will be the Dallas Cowboys versus New York Giants and that it would add an additional Sunday game at the end of the season.

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There is an insatiable appetite for NFL games, which is why the league is exploring cutting new deals ahead of its 2029 opt-outs. Eighty-four of the 100 most-watched broadcasts of 2025 were NFL games, and pricing for NFL ad spots is up 72% over the past decade.

The hosts also discussed the potential buyers for the Seattle Seahawks, as Sportico broke the news last week of a pair of potential bids. Steel titan Aditya Mittal and former Boston Celtics control owner Wyc Grousbeck are preparing a bid, as is billionaire Vinod Khosla, a prominent West Coast VC and investor in the San Francisco 49ers.

Lastly, the hosts gave a recap of Sportico’s Invest West event in San Francisco that featured conversations with team owners Joe Lacob, Alex Bhathal and Vivek Ranadivé, California team leaders Jess Smith, Larry Baer and Stacy Johns, San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie and more.

Lacob and Bhathal are now rivals on the court, with the Portland Fire tipping off last weekend with 19,335 fans setting a record for an inaugural WNBA home game. Lacob’s Golden State Valkyries topped Sportico’s WNBA team valuations at $850 million, and the billionaire discussed his failed bid for MLB’s San Diego Padres and a potential lockout in 2027.

“We assumed likely not a season next year,” Lacob said. “Or at least that it was a possibility.”

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