In a perfect world, the NFL will release its 2026-27 schedule on or before May 11, when NBCUniversal and Fox are set to present their fall TV slates to advertisers and media buyers during their upfront presentations in New York.<\/p>\n
But as the world never tires of reminding us, nothing about it can be characterized as \u201cperfect,\u201d and there\u2019s a chance that the six members of the league\u2019s TV-planning team won\u2019t have a final breakdown of the coming season available in time for the network\u2019s big dog-and-pony shows.<\/p>\n
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While the NFL effectively targeted next week as go-time for its schedule release, league VP of broadcast planning Mike North said he has no idea as to when the TV\/streaming roster will be loosed into the wild. Speaking on the It\u2019s Always Gameday in Buffalo podcast last month, North told hosts Sal Capaccio and Matt Bove\u00a0that fans (and the NFL\u2019s media partners) may have to wait a little longer than usual for their first dive into the fall schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s coming out in June, but the second week in May has been our target the last few years,\u201d North said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it\u2019s impossible to think about the third week in May.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, if the schedule isn\u2019t available next week, the NFL partners that still stage traditional upfront presentations (which is to say, every network other than CBS) won\u2019t be able to highlight some of the must-see matchups for September and beyond. From a transactional standpoint, the lack of specifics won\u2019t be a deterrent to advertisers\u2014after all, the last time anyone wrote a check at an upfront after-party was probably in May 2009, following ABC\u2019s well-received screening of the full Modern Family pilot\u2014but the networks obviously would enjoy having the opportunity to talk up some marquee events.<\/p>\n
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In other words, while Fox would love to be able to crow about who the Cowboys will host on Thanksgiving Day, a little mystery surrounding that matchup isn\u2019t going to cast a pall on the network\u2019s Monday afternoon pitch. (Dallas<\/a> could play the Cardinals and still draw over 55 million holiday viewers\u2014which isn\u2019t to say that the NFL plans to burn off one of its top TV windows<\/a> with a team that went 3-14 last year. The push to include Patrick Mahomes<\/a> and the Chiefs in last year\u2019s Tryptophan Bowl helped CBS reach a record 57.2 million viewers<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The networks next week may not be in a position next week to confirm that their top requests were honored by the league\u2014since the Mahomes-Josh Allen rivalry launched in 2020, the big ask has been the annual Chiefs-Bills showdown, with CBS landing that barnburner in each of the last four years\u2014but specificity isn\u2019t necessarily paramount. For one thing, thanks to multiyear advertising commitments, about 40% of the in-game inventory is already spoken for when the upfront shows take place.<\/p>\n By mid-June, if not well before, 85% to 90% of the NFL ad slots have been booked, with the networks actively holding back a small chunk of inventory proportionate to how strong the sales bosses think the fall scatter market will play out. Nine years out of 10, scatter favors the sellers, and a last-minute bid for a 30-second spot that went for $850,000 in the upfront bazaar can now cost laggards in the neighborhood of $1,250,000.<\/p>\n While North did not say why there may be a holdup this year, the negotiations over the NFL\u2019s new five-game carveout are a likely culprit. As North noted, the package\u2014which includes three games that otherwise would have aired as the second frames of the now defunct Monday Night Football \u201cside-by-side\u201d doubleheaders, an ESPN+ exclusive and an international date<\/a>\u2014is still being hashed out. Careful to avoid letting the proverbial cat out of the sack, North judiciously mentioned the two streamers that are vying for the fiver (YouTube and Amazon\u2019s Prime Video) before tossing Netflix into the conversational mix.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n North didn\u2019t explicitly confirm that the carveout would land at a streamer, but: Sure, it will. In a bid to underscore how much of a glow-up this will be, the scheduler acknowledged the services\u2019 relative ubiquity. \u201cEverybody gets their paper towels from Amazon, everybody watches Netflix and everybody can access YouTube for free, like they did last year with that Brazil game<\/a>,\u201d North said.<\/p>\n The new package will almost certainly include the Sept. 11 Rams-49ers game from Melbourne, Australia, and North said that all five games will be staged in standalone national windows. He added that the NFL is still looking at developing an exclusive window for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day<\/a>, a new wrinkle that would also be bundled into the streaming package. \u201cThere are a lot of places that we want to deploy that inventory,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n North gave fans a bit of a peek behind the curtain, saying that the process officially enters endgame when the six staffers on the scheduling committee head on up to Roger Goodell\u2019s office to present the 2026-27 slate for his approval. \u201c[The schedule] doesn\u2019t get finalized until the commissioner of the National Football League says it\u2019s finalized,\u201d North said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m being cagey about the date. I don\u2019t know the date. None of us know the date yet because we don\u2019t know when we\u2019re going to walk into the boss\u2019 office and present him one. And he\u2019s going to say: \u2018That\u2019s perfect. Ready to go. Send it out to the world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The thumbs-up from the commissioner starts the clock on the greater release strategy, with the teams getting 24 hours advance notice\u2014giving them ample time to blast out their social media executions \u2026 and to begin the process of managing all the particulars related to ticketing. \u201cOnce he says \u2018go,\u2019 we lock it in,\u201d North said. \u201cThe first thing we do is turn off the computers because I don\u2019t want to find a better schedule after the commish has already blessed the winner.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n On the morning of the official release, the NFL pings copies of the slate to its broadcast partners.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s no telling when exactly the schedule will arrive, the NFL has never reached the midway point of May without having issued a puff of white smoke from 345 Park Ave. \u201cIf we walk in there on May 11 or 12, and he\u2019s not happy with where we are, he\u2019ll send us back downstairs and we\u2019ll lock ourselves back in the room and we\u2019ll keep grinding until we find something he likes,\u201d North said. \u201cAnd if it slides to the 18th or 19th or 20th, you know, the world will keep spinning.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the networks are hoping that they have something substantial to talk up during next week\u2019s upfront pitches. YouTube is anxious to receive confirmation that it has persevered in its quest for the new five-game slate ahead of its May 13 \u201cBrandcast\u201d presentation, although precedent suggests that the Google-owned platform may be furiously revising its run-of-show right before the curtain goes up next Wednesday at Lincoln Center. Last year, YouTube didn\u2019t get word that it had scored the NFL\u2019s Rio game until just a few hours before showtime.<\/p>\n For all that, the smart money says the NFL will figure out a way to crank out another banger in time for next week\u2019s upfront frenzy. \u201cI\u2019m sure at some point [Goodell] is going to say, \u2018All right, well, you morons, I\u2019m not giving you any more time\u2014we gotta go,\u2019\u201d North joked. \u201cI hope it doesn\u2019t get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n NBCU kicks off the upfronts Monday at 10:30 a.m. ET from Radio City Music Hall, with Fox presenting at 4 p.m. ET the same day at New York City Center. Disney returns to the Javits Center Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET, while Netflix and YouTube are set to finish out the week on May 13.<\/p>\n Best of Sportico.com<\/p>\n Sign up for Sportico’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a perfect world, the NFL will release its 2026-27 schedule on or before May 11, when NBCUniversal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":883406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[229,7,13626,6,499,5098],"class_list":["post-883405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-dallas","tag-football","tag-mike-north","tag-nfl","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-youtube"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116523927063540836","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}