2026 NFL schedule release could be delayed by a week

Mark your calendars. Or don’t, because the date might change.

The NFL schedule release, which has landed in the second week of May for the past five or six years running, could come a week later than usual in 2026. NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North appeared on the It’s Always Game Day in Buffalo podcast prior to this year’s NFL Draft — with his comments first reported by CBS Sports — and said that while the second week of May remains the league’s target, the third week is now firmly on the table.

“Most fans know full well that the schedule comes out in mid-May now,” North said. “That’s what we’ve done the last five or six years. That’s sort of our target. Is there any magic to May 12, 13, 14? No. Is there any real downside to May 19, 20, or 21? No. I don’t think it’s coming out in June, but that second week in May has been our target the last few years, but I don’t know that it’s impossible to think about that third week in May.”

The main complication is a five-game package that the league is negotiating separately with a streaming partner. YouTube is reportedly the frontrunner, with Netflix and Fox also in consideration. Until those talks are resolved and the games have a home, it’s not possible to build the full schedule around them.

“These five games that are out there as a package that are being negotiated right now — love to know when, where those games are going to be played so we can schedule them accordingly,” North continued. “We’ve got more international games than ever before. They’d sure like to know. There’s planning trips. We need to book hotels and charter airlines and anthem singers and frisbee dogs.”

As with most things NFL, the final word comes from one person.

“It doesn’t get finalized until the Commissioner of the National Football League says it’s finalized,” North added. “None of us know the date yet because we don’t know when we’re going to walk into the boss’s office and present him one. If we walk in there on May 11th or 12th and he’s not happy with where we are, he’ll send us back downstairs, and we’ll keep grinding. And if it slides to the 18th, 19th, or 20th, the world will keep spinning.”

This is all a bit of a sideshow to the larger media rights saga playing out behind the scenes. The NFL’s renegotiations with its five primary broadcast partners — CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, and Prime Video — have essentially stalled. The league is looking to roughly double its current rights fees; the networks are reportedly more comfortable with a 25% increase. NBC Sports president Jon Miller said as recently as last week that the NFL has not yet approached NBC about a new deal. The league has only formally engaged CBS, and those talks are far from finished. All signs point to new deals not taking effect until 2027.

To date, only two 2026 regular-season games have been officially placed: the 49ers at Rams in Australia on Sept. 10 and the Ravens at Cowboys in Brazil on Sept. 27. The rest is coming, just maybe not as soon as everyone hoped.