NFL's grossly expanded national schedule is making RedZone and Sunday Ticket less essential

By continuing to increase the number of national broadcasts, the NFL has diluted the value of both RedZone and Sunday Ticket.

The 2026-27 season will begin on a Wednesday, followed by a Thursday night game from Australia. The league will also debut its first-ever Thanksgiving Eve broadcast this year, leading into three games on Thanksgiving and one on Black Friday. Another game is set for Christmas Eve, with three more scheduled for Christmas Day.

Beyond that, the NFL is extending its late-season Saturday package to four weekends, spanning Weeks 15-18. In total, the league will stage a record nine international games this season, all of which will air nationally.

And all of that comes on top of the league's usual lineup of three windows on Sunday and one Monday.

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The NFL saw the risks of overloading the national schedule last season. By midseason, there simply were not enough relevant teams to justify the number of standalone broadcasts.

Last Christmas, five of the six participating teams were either already eliminated from playoff contention or ultimately missed the postseason. On Thanksgiving, only one of the six teams in action reached the playoffs.

The Sunday slate used to be elite enough that fans could justify paying for Sunday Ticket to access every out-of-market matchup. This season, YouTube will charge returning subscribers roughly $480 for the package. However, the more games siphoned into standalone broadcasts, the fewer games remain in the traditional 1 p.m. and 4:25 p.m. windows, leaving Sunday Ticket with less to offer.

Take Thanksgiving week as an example. By Sunday morning, 10 teams will have already played. Another six teams will appear in the national Sunday afternoon slot, "Sunday Night Football" or "Monday Night Football." That leaves just eight games for paying Sunday Ticket viewers.

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The same dynamic applies to RedZone. The channel was once essential to the Sunday viewing experience. It was the most efficient and thrilling way for viewers to follow every meaningful moment across a crowded Sunday slate. Yet with fewer games in the early and late windows, RedZone has become less of a necessity.

By mid- to late season, any game of substance will likely air nationally. Keeping track of the other, less consequential games may then only appeal to sports bettors and fantasy football players.

At the same time, fans are now required to pay for multiple streaming platforms - including Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Peacock - to access the full NFL schedule. That added fragmentation could reduce consumers' willingness to also pay for premium products such as Sunday Ticket and RedZone.

More broadly, the NFL is eroding the scarcity that helped turn the sport into America's dominant television property.

Sundays used to feel distinct. The concentrated schedule created a sense of occasion and urgency that is diluted when games are spread across Thursdays, occasional Wednesdays, Friday holidays, Saturday nights, Sunday mornings and multiple streaming-exclusive windows.

For the first time in decades, NFL games are beginning to feel skippable. There are simply too many of them spread across too many days. The combination of an overloaded schedule, international travel and shortened preparation time increasingly produces mediocre matchups in premium television windows.

The NFL is unlikely to reverse course because of concerns about the quality of play. The league has shown little evidence that competitive aesthetics matter as much as media rights growth and inventory maximization.

However, if the continued expansion of national windows ultimately weakens premium properties such as Sunday Ticket and RedZone, the league may eventually reconsider whether it has stretched the product too far.