NFL's 2026 Season Will Kick Off On A Wednesday Night
· Yahoo Sports
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - JANUARY 17: Ernest Jones IV #13 of the Seattle Seahawks celebrates an interception during the third quarter against the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Divisional Playoff game at Lumen Field on January 17, 2026 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
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Getty ImagesFans can add Wednesdays to the growing list of days of the week when they’re able to watch NFL games this season.
On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint reported that the league will kick off the 2026 regular season on Wednesday, Sept. 9. That season-opening game will appear on NBC, as it largely has since 2006, and is likely to feature the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.
Why the change to a Wednesday kickoff this year?
The NFL season has been kicking off on Thursday nights for most of the last 20 years, with 2012 being the most recent exception there.
At that time, the league moved the game between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants to Wednesday, in order to avoid Democratic National Convention coverage.
This go-around, the opening game gets moved up thanks to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 and the NFL’s first-ever contest in Australia.
While the Sports Broadcasting Act is meant to protect Friday night high school football games, it is only enforced starting the second Friday of September through the second Saturday of December each year.
The NFL has hosted Week 1 Friday games in Brazil for the last two years – with those airing on Peacock and YouTube, respectively – but those games also took place on the first Friday in September. This year, Labor Day is not until September 7, making that following Friday during the Week 1 schedule the second Friday. Which is when the Sports Broadcasting Act’s enforcement begins.
The Act had largely kept the NFL off of Fridays completely until the last few years. Amazon Prime Video has been hosting a Black Friday game since 2023, but has staged it in the afternoon to avoid conflict there.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - SEPTEMBER 06: A general view prior to a game between the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles at Arena Corinthians on September 06, 2024 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Wagner Meier/Getty Images)
Getty ImagesAdditional Australia Complications
Though international games have increased as part of the NFL’s annual regular season schedule, to-date those contests have been confined to countries directly nearby (Canada and Mexico), the recent Brazil games in the same hemisphere or Europe. But the Melbourne game between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers poses even more unique challenges.
In September, Melbourne is 15 hours ahead of New York, and 18 hours ahead of California, where both the Rams and 49ers are coming from. Giving the two NFC contenders a bye in week two in order to deal with travel is not a workable solution, so this game was always going to be contested before Sunday during Week 1 action.
Losing the Friday game window, though, forced this solution since the international game was not going to start the season, and the NFL wants two standalone weekday game windows before Week 1’s Sunday slate.
Foretelling Future Scheduling Challenges
International schedule expansion probably spurs more situations like this one in the coming years, too.
As the NFL has been eager to expand its global reach – Commissioner Roger Goodell has stated he’d like to see 16 international games per year – this will inevitably create more time zone issues and TV partner quandaries.
September’s Rams/49ers game is the first regular season matchup in either Australia or Asia, but it’s unlikely to be the last. The NFL’s West Coast teams could potentially become fixtures in Australia, and there is already enough established football fandom in countries like Japan, Indian and China to bring games there as well.
Doing so inevitably means either Week 1 games or immediate bye weeks following those matchups.
Further challenging matters is the rights question around these international games.
Puck’s John Ourand has reported that the Australia game is being sold as part of a bundle, as the NFL looks to create yet another lucrative package to maximize the value of the regular season. Should those sell to a partner that isn’t NBC, it creates another hurdle for any Week 1 international game since NBC’s package includes airing the opening night game.
There is no confirmed deal in place for this year’s Australia game or any future international package. However, it’s likely those games would go to one or more streaming partners, and would have to fit in around existing broadcast deals, as well as the Thursday Night Football rights that Amazon Prime Video already holds.
A lesser, but still existent concern, as well: The impact of the 12-team MLB Playoffs.
Many NFL teams share cities with MLB teams, who are in the thick of pennant races in September. Whether those stadiums share a physical footprint or not, they do share city resources, split local fan attention and at times, share broadcast partners as well.
Those shared partners likely want to keep those baseball games in premium slots, limiting the space available for standalone NFL games. But if the league wants these contests to happen, they certainly will, regardless of which conflicts may exist.