The 2026–27 NFL season will reportedly begin on a Wednesday this year, with the usual Thursday game played in Melbourne, Australia.
Unlike the past two seasons, the league cannot schedule a game on the opening Friday of the season because it falls in the second week of September (not the first). The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 prohibits the NFL from broadcasting games from the second Friday in September until the second Saturday in December, protecting both high school and college football from professional competition.
The Wednesday game will air on NBC, according to Joe Flint of The Wall Street Journal, featuring the Super Bowl-winning Seattle Seahawks. The Melbourne game will likely be part of a new four-game package the NFL is shopping to a streamer as a result of the league’s equity deal with ESPN.
The package is also expected to include an annual Wednesday game on the night before Thanksgiving. YouTube is believed to be the frontrunner for the new slate.
But while Americans are reluctant to concede there is such a thing as – wait for it — too much football, we maintain that the NFL is diluting its product by further stretching out its national schedule.
The added windows have undermined the NFL’s tradition of a robust Sunday slate. Opening weekend is, put simply, not as strong when four teams have already played by Sunday morning. What’s more, 10 teams will have already played by the first Sunday after Thanksgiving.
With games on Wednesday and Thursday, there is simply less excitement for Sunday’s early, afternoon, and prime-time windows. By Monday, Americans will have already spent three to four days, including Saturday for college football, watching the sport.
Scarcity helped elevate football to America’s new pastime. The NFL is taking that away.
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As the Christmas Day slate last year proved, there are not enough compelling teams to expand the national schedule much further. Adding games on Wednesdays and Fridays only increases the likelihood of sloppy play, uneven rest between opponents, and injuries – all of which hurt the product last season.
International games also tend to be lower quality, as long travel and added obligations interfere with normal practice time. Consider how flat the Kansas City Chiefs looked opening weekend last year in Brazil against the Chargers. That was not a strong showcase for the league.
Traveling back across the ocean also hinders preparation for the following week.
In theory, the NFL would schedule teams that open on Wednesday against teams that open on Thursday. But the league will likely prioritize scheduling the juiciest matchups instead, creating scenarios in which a team on 11 days of rest faces one on just seven.
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We understand these complaints fall on deaf ears. The NFL is the biggest brand in entertainment in the United States and sees growth potential in expanding internationally and adding more streaming partners. Still, the league ought to consider the toll that pursuing every available form of monetization has on the game itself.
The NFL is not as good as it used to be. There are too many games, windows, and networks involved. The product is undeniably diluted. And yet, the league plans to dilute it even further by adding Wednesday games to the schedule.
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