The NFL is slowly killing the Sunday afternoon window

Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

An analysis of the NFL TV schedule since 2016 shows that the NFL has steadily shifted inventory away from the traditional Sunday regional windows on CBS and Fox and into standalone packages.

An Awful Announcing analysis of the schedule data found that, this year, the NFL is scheduled to air 197 Sunday-afternoon games. That’s down from 198 in 2025 and from 211 in 2021, the first year of the NFL’s expanded 18-week schedule.

The 2026 total is also one less than the number of Sunday afternoon games in 2016, when the NFL had one fewer week in the regular season.

The NFL’s Sunday regional windows have long been the bedrock of the league’s appeal. Unlike other major American team sports, which schedule games throughout the week, the NFL has long aired the bulk of its games at 1 p.m. or 4 p.m. ET on Sundays. Since 1998, those Sunday games have aired exclusively on CBS or Fox.

The consistency of the NFL schedule has always been good for fans. There’s no need to worry about whether you have the right streaming service or what time a game tips off.

While decreasing the number of Sunday afternoon games, the NFL has been increasing the number of standalone windows. Excluding Thursday Night Football and Monday Night Football, there will be 23 standalone windows this year, up from 15 last year.

Week 15, the week of Christmas, is the most egregious example. There will be five standalone windows, leaving only eight Sunday afternoon games.

But the increase in standalone games is likely better for the NFL’s bottom line. Netflix recently expanded its agreement with the NFL from two games to five. Fox, CBS, and NBC also announced new deals this season to add standalone games. Prime Video’s standalone Black Friday game is an addition to its Thursday Night Football package. Even ESPN, which owns NFL Network, had to pay additional rights fees to license the standalone NFL Network games.

As long as networks continue to want standalone games, the NFL will keep finding ways to sell them off. The league will argue that standalone games are actually better for fans. A less appealing regional Sunday afternoon game can be hard to watch if you don’t live in your favorite team’s market and don’t want to pay for NFL Sunday Ticket. Standalone windows are national and don’t require Sunday Ticket.

But the NFL doesn’t put all of these standalone windows over the air. In addition to Netflix’s five exclusive games and Prime Video’s Black Friday game, NFL Network will air seven exclusive games, and Peacock will exclusively air one game. That leaves only nine standalone games available over the air.

The games on cable and streaming are required to be televised over-the-air in home markets, but for all but two teams, that only results in over-the-air coverage on one station in the team’s city. If you live in a suburb and don’t have access to the city’s over-the-air station, then you are out of luck. Sunday afternoon regional games often receive much broader over-the-air coverage in local markets. For instance, the Packers get additional guaranteed over-the-air coverage in Milwaukee, and the Patriots get coverage in Manchester, N.H.

So, despite what the NFL may claim, these increased standalone windows are bad for fans. Especially as these games increasingly air on cable or streaming services. That says nothing about how these added windows weaken the Sunday afternoon slate, decreasing the value of the already expensive NFL Sunday Ticket and lessening the appeal of NFL RedZone.

The NFL is by far the most popular league in the United States and can likely draw more fans than other leagues. For example, when Thursday Night Football moved to Amazon Prime, even a slight decrease in viewership still blew away almost everything else on television.

But fans are increasingly complaining about fragmentation, and they won’t follow their favorite sports leagues everywhere. There is a reason Apple has never released viewership numbers for MLB games, and Peacock has never released viewership numbers for NBA games.

The NFL remains the king of sports in the United States, but nothing lasts forever.

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