The NFL could begin to renegotiate its agreements on media rights from 2026, four years before the deactivation clause of the current agreement, Commissioner Roger Goodell told CNBC in an exclusive interview.
A new media rights agreement could potentially add billions of dollars to the league chests. The League needs to be granted from its current media partners – Disney,, Comcast Nbcuniversal, Primordial,, Amazon And Fox – To start discussions on any new agreement.
The NFL has signed a media rights contract of $ 111 billion over 11 years in 2021 which contains a league deactivation clause after the 2029-30 season for all its media partners, except Disney, which has an additional year of rights.
The two parties may be encouraged to conclude new rights agreements if this means that the league can increase annual income and that media partners can extend NFL rights control for years to come.
“I think our partners would like to sit and talk to us at any time, and we continue to dialogue with them. I like this opportunity,” said Goodell. “Obviously, this will not happen this year. But it could happen next year. It could happen.”
NFL programming is the most watched content on traditional television. Last year, 72 of the 100 best programs were NFL games, according to data collected by Nielsen. The previous year, 93 of the 100 best NFL games.
“The reason why we felt so strongly about the option is that the landscape changes. This could be a long -term agreement with the advantage of having this stability and this security. But I think that reality is that it changes so quickly that you want to go earlier,” said Goodell.
Other major professional leagues, such as NBA and NHL, have considerably increased their television income in the past year by concluding new agreements with media partners. Goodell admitted to having watched other media offers from recent sports and said that in comparison, the NFL leaves money on the table.
The representatives of Amazon, Disney’s Espn, Fox, Nbcuniversal and CBS belonging to Paramount refused to comment.
Accelerate until 2026
The start of media talks earlier can be difficult at the beginning of 2026 from a regulatory perspective, because ESPN has an unanswered agreement with the NFL which would see the League acquire a 10% stake in the network. The renegotiation of an agreement on media rights when this acquisition is still pending may present a conflict of interest that the two parties would like to avoid.
If this agreement takes place, ESPN can be more open to play ball with the NFL on a future media agreement given the minority property of the League.
Another delay in accelerated renegotiations could be gracked by a potential 18th week of regular season. The League may want additional week before locking new media offers, but such a change would require the approval of the NFL Players Association, which currently has only an acting leader.
The NFL will want to weigh any new agreement with flexibility to add new partners, such as YouTube And Netflix. The two companies have now worn games for the NFL. YouTube broadcast a week 1 game this year, and Netflix made its debut in the NFL on Christmas day last year and will continue this tradition this season with two other games.
The acceleration of new media offers for professional football could also affect the MLB.
This league plans to renegotiate its media rights at the end of the 2028 season. If the NFL moves first and obtains large increases from the media partners, it is possible that media companies feel more forced to spend on other sports. It is also possible that the MLB could use a strong increase in NFL as proof of the reason why its content should also obtain a greater bump of the costs, given the inherent value for live sports where advertisements cannot be ignored.
A new NFL agreement could also increase the league salary ceiling in future seasons, giving teams more money to spend on players and potentially lead to expansion of alignment.
NFL team assessments are also largely linked to the league television agreements. The franchise assessments have soared in recent years, the average NFL team worth $ 7.65 billion, according to official assessments of the CNBC NFL team – up 18% compared to last year.
A large bump on income would probably continue to continue.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of Nbcuniversal, owner of CNBC. Square would become the new mother company of CNBC on the spin-off of Comcast de Visant.