NFL Seeks New Partners: Selling 5 Games & Ending 'MNF' Doubleheaders

The National Football League (NFL) is looking to complete the resale of media rights for five 2026 games in the next six weeks, recently regained in the league’s equity deal with Disney, ESPN's parent company.

This move comes as the 2026 regular-season schedule will include several new features, including a Wednesday start to the season. The NFL-Disney deal opens up new facets to the broadcast plan, including the end of 'Monday Night Football' doubleheaders on ESPN and ABC, according to Hans Schroeder, NFL EVP of media distribution.

Schroeder explained that the league realized fans felt conflicted having to choose between the Monday night games.

There will be another Christmas tripleheader, with Netflix carrying two of the games and Fox the third; although the sequence is not defined, Netflix is likely to broadcast the first two holiday games. The possibility of playing a game on Thanksgiving Eve is considered “super interesting” by Schroeder, despite the complexities of team scheduling.

The executive added: “We are actively looking at that window.” Last year, the Thanksgiving holiday recorded a record audience in the regular season, and an additional NFL game broadcast the night before could generate an even larger audience.

The effective deadline to complete the resale of the five games, previously held by Disney, is the release of the NFL schedule in mid-May, when the broadcast networks for those games will be assigned.

For those elements not yet completed, particularly the resale of five games previously held by Disney, the effective deadline to do so is the NFL schedule release in mid-May. This will certify each team’s upcoming schedule and assign network broadcasts for those games, subject to flexible scheduling rules.

In addition, that mid-May period is marked by a series of network upfront presentations to advertisers, and news around upcoming NFL content typically plays a major role in those events.

“Those [resale] deals need to wrap up in time for the schedule release,” Schroeder said. “The challenge is managing through some really interesting proposals, and we’re seeing the creativity of the market. … We want to work through all the ideas to get the best opportunity.”

The NFL's upcoming opt-outs in its core domestic media rights are set to generate billions of dollars in incremental revenue, dominating current discussion around the media, financial, and sports businesses.

Schroeder stated that these provisions also give the league the ability to pivot amid a media industry undergoing significant disruption.

“There’s a lot of change still happening [in the media business],” he said. “What those [opt-outs] do ultimately is give us flexibility.”

Schroeder also pushed back against Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr, who recently went on an extended media tour to decry what he sees as excessive media fragmentation by the NFL.

Carr said the league’s increased move to streaming services represents a “tipping point” that might be met with government intervention, but Schroeder reaffirmed the league’s stance on broadcast television.

Nearly 90% of all league games are shown on broadcast TV, and that figure is 100% for the home markets of the participating teams in each game. “I’m not sure there’s a single content owner, league, or otherwise that’s done more to support broadcast television than what we do,” Schroeder said.