Whatever Happened to Sunday Afternoon?

The NFL is the most popular league in America.  They're fully aware of that.  They're also fully aware of the fact that everybody wants a piece of the action.  Which is why they keep carving out standalone windows and offering those games to the highest bidder.  It creates a fragmented (and frustrating) viewing experience.  Which they know.  They just don't care.  As was made fully clear with the 2026 schedule.

Let's start with Thanksgiving weekend.  As a part of their new Netflix package, there's a game on Thanksgiving Eve.  Which means there will be at least one Wednesday game late in the season.  With the traditional Thanksgiving tripleheader and the now-annual Black Friday game, there will be five games on Thanksgiving Weekend before Sunday!  Then, once you include the Sunday night and Monday night games, that's seven standalone national windows that week.  That's nearly half the league! 

And it leaves only nine games for Sunday afternoon, which are essentially the Thanksgiving leftovers since they'll obviously want the higher-rated teams and matchups for those standalone windows.  Somehow, they managed to save a Seahawks-49ers game for FOX to air as their 4:25 national game, but this is the rest of the Sunday afternoon slate in Week 12: Saints-Bengals, Raiders-Browns, Ravens-Texans, Giants-Colts, Jets-Dolphins, Falcons-Vikings, Titans-Jaguars, Commanders-Cardinals.  Super appealing, isn't it?  But, hey, CBS at least gets Baltimore-Houston in the 1:00 window!

Now let's talk about Christmas, the NFL's new favorite holiday.  I actually don't have an issue with them playing on Christmas when it falls on a regular NFL game day (or a Friday, as is the case this season).  But now that they have a deal guaranteeing Netflix a Christmas game every season, it doesn't matter what day Christmas falls on.  Who cares if it's a Tuesday or Wednesday?!  And with three games on Christmas, a Thursday night game on Christmas Eve, Sunday night, Monday and two TBAs on Saturday (for the NFL Network doubleheader), that's eight standalone games and eight total on Sunday afternoon (with 49ers-Chiefs as a full national broadcast in the late window on CBS).

For years, the NFL avoided scheduling on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Christmas itself is obviously no longer untouchable.  Would it surprise anyone if Christmas Eve becomes the next holiday or holiday-adjacent day to get a regular annual game?  But, then again, maybe not, since Christmas Eve will already be covered by an existing broadcaster if it falls on a Sunday, Monday or Thursday.  That still leaves four other days, though.

What the NFL is making clear by creating all of these standalone windows is that it's devaluing the Sunday afternoon game (which is what made the NFL what it is to begin with).  Yet they expect CBS and FOX to pay more for fewer games during the next media rights negotiations.  Just for the "privilege" of continuing their decades-long relationships with the league.  How does that make any sense?!  Yes, they're each a part of the Super Bowl rotation.  Is that really enough to warrant paying the astronomical rights fee for the NFL to continue giving them nothing but scraps?

An analysis of this season's schedule revealed that 197 of the 272 games will be on Sunday afternoons.  That's only one fewer than last year and still sounds like a lot.  Until you realize there were 211 Sunday afternoon games (still the day and time people most associate with the NFL) in 2021, the first year of the 18-week, 17-game schedule.  It's also one fewer than in 2016, when the NFL played 256 total games in 17 weeks.

It also devalues Sunday Ticket and NFL RedZone, two of the other properties that are responsible for the NFL's popularity.  Why pay hundreds of dollars for Sunday Ticket when there are fewer options, and those are mainly limited to the least appealing games of the weekend?  The 4:25 doubleheader game is still a marquee window, but that ends up being a full national broadcast if it's a particularly appealing matchup, so there's no need to have Sunday Ticket or RedZone if it's going to be on FOX or CBS regardless anyway.  Especially since the cost of Sunday Ticket would be in addition to the hundreds you have to shell out for each different streaming service that now has NFL games!

In defense of their broadcast strategy, the NFL points to the fact that 87 percent of its games are available on over-the-air broadcasters, including 100 percent in home markets.  While that's technically true, it comes with a massive asterisk since that counts all of the Sunday afternoon games that are only available regionally or via Sunday Ticket (which you have to pay extra for).  In reality, the Sunday afternoon offerings are limited to three (occasionally four) per market, two of which are simultaneous.  So, the actual percentage is much lower.

They also boasted that the NFL will have an "increased presence" on broadcast TV this season.  That increased presence is, you guessed it, an additional standalone window each for CBS, FOX and NBC.  They'll all get a Saturday game in December, with FOX and CBS having a doubleheader in Week 15 and NBC getting a game in Week 16 (as well as a Peacock exclusive that night).  They each also have one of the NFL's record nine international games, with FOX getting the Patriots-Lions game from Munich in Week 10 as part of a tripleheader (Vikings-Packers is the primary game at 1, Cowboys-49ers is a national late game).

You can start tracing the reduction of Sunday afternoon games to the increase in the number of international games, particularly the games in Europe.  Those created a brand new 9:30 AM broadcast window before the standard Sunday afternoon slate.  But, as the international offerings expanded beyond Europe, they had to figure out a time to broadcast them.  This year, we've got Rio and Mexico City, which are easy since they're in the same time zones.  We've also got Australia, which will be broadcast on Netflix.

As a part of Netflix's newly-created NFL package, they get four games per season.  One of them is in Week 1, which will almost certainly be an international game on either Thursday or Friday night.  Except, this year they can't do Friday night in Week 1 because there are only four weekends in September (they got away with it the last two years because Labor Day was early), so the Australia game is on Thursday night/Friday morning.  Which pushed the traditional opener hosted by the Super Bowl champion to Wednesday.  Who wants to bet that won't just be a one-year thing?

That's another thing you'll notice about this year's schedule.  With Netflix getting a Thanksgiving Eve game, the NFL has now established a regular Wednesday game, and the Black Friday game has been around for a few years.  That leaves Tuesday as the only day of the week in which there isn't a scheduled NFL game.  However, we've seen Tuesday games in the past, so it wouldn't be shocking if the NFL tries Tuesday at some point, too (Tuesday would actually be easier to schedule than Wednesday since the teams would have five days off until Sunday...or six until Monday).

Frankly, that just seems inevitable.  Because the NFL is going after world domination.  And if they want to create a Tuesday night package of games, they will.  And someone will bid for it.  Probably another streamer that you'll need another subscription for, further adding to fan frustration.  Because the splintering off of Sunday afternoon games isn't just about that.  It's because it's never been more expensive...or difficult...to watch the NFL than it will be this season.

Does the NFL care, though?  Absolutely not!  Not when there's more money to be had.  And the only way to get Netflix's money is to carve out a package of games for them to broadcast exclusively.  So, they took them from the only place they could--Sunday afternoons.  In one way, it's a good thing in that it creates additional exclusive windows.  More opportunities for people to watch football.  But, those extra opportunities will only cost more, while making it more expensive to show less on Sunday afternoons.

Unfortunately, there's no way around it, either.  NFL games on almost every day of the week broadcast by eight different outlets is the new reality.  Whether that's good or bad is a matter of opinion, but it's also irrelevant.  Because people will still watch (and pay for the services necessary to watch).  And, as long as they do, the NFL has no reason to change their approach.  No matter how fan-unfriendly it is.