The National Football League (NFL) continues to evaluate new ways to expand its calendar, and one of the league’s latest ideas could place professional football on television the night before Thanksgiving.
According to a report from Adam Schefter of ESPN, league officials have discussed the possibility of adding a Wednesday game on Thanksgiving Eve beginning with the 2026 season.
If implemented, the additional contest would take place on November 25, 2026, and would represent another step in the NFL’s broader effort to stretch its schedule across more days of the week and capitalize on television demand for live sports programming.
For decades, Thanksgiving has served as one of the league’s most reliable ratings engines, with games traditionally airing across FOX Sports, CBS, and NBC. Yet in recent years, the league has become increasingly aggressive about surrounding the holiday with additional inventory that networks and streaming platforms eagerly pursue because of the massive audiences NFL games consistently generate.
The league already introduced a Black Friday matchup beginning with the 2023 season, a game currently carried by Amazon’s Prime Video platform. Meanwhile, commissioner Roger Goodell previously indicated that the league has explored expanding its Black Friday presence beyond a single game as media companies continue to prioritize live sports during holiday viewing windows.
Christmas has also become a growing focus for the NFL’s schedule makers. When December 25 fell on a Wednesday in 2024, the league staged a pair of Christmas Day contests. Last season, the NFL delivered an even larger holiday showcase, scheduling three games when Christmas landed on a Thursday.
Those broadcasts became part of a lucrative agreement with Netflix, which reportedly pays the league roughly $75 million per game for its Christmas Day doubleheader package.
Because the NFL remains the most powerful programming asset on television, even a single additional game can create substantial financial opportunity. Media partners frequently compete for the rights to exclusive NFL windows, and the introduction of a Wednesday night game before Thanksgiving could attract a streaming platform eager to secure a major holiday property.
YouTube could also be a potential landing spot for new NFL inventory. The platform currently holds the league’s NFL Sunday Ticket package and streamed its first exclusive live NFL game last season when the Kansas City Chiefs faced the Los Angeles Chargers in a game played in Brazil.
If the league ultimately places a game on Thanksgiving Eve, the move would create an extended stretch of football programming surrounding the holiday. A Wednesday night kickoff would launch a nine-day run that could include NFL games on seven different days, an arrangement that further strengthens the league’s dominance across both traditional television and digital streaming platforms.
The scheduling concept also arrives while the NFL continues discussions surrounding its massive media rights agreements. The league signed 11-year contracts valued at more than $110 billion with partners including CBS, NBC, FOX Sports, ESPN and Prime Video. Although those deals began only a few seasons ago, the league holds opt-out clauses later in the decade, a negotiating tool that could help drive even larger rights payments as demand for NFL content continues to climb.
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