NFL Expands Global Schedule And Adds Thanksgiving Eve Netflix Game
NEW YORK - The NFL's 2026 schedule is becoming a business story as much as a football calendar. The league said its regular season will include nine international games across four continents and seven countries, while a new Thanksgiving Eve window puts Packers at Rams on Netflix at SoFi Stadium.
The two announcements point in the same direction. The NFL is treating regular-season games as global venue assets and premium streaming inventory, not just local-market events attached to a home schedule. For fans, that means more football in more places, but also more games spread across platforms, time zones and nontraditional windows.
The Story So Far
The NFL said Wednesday that matchups for all nine 2026 International Games have been revealed. The league described the slate as its most ambitious global schedule to date and said the games span four continents and seven countries.
"matchups for all nine International Games -- across four continents and seven countries -- have been revealed" - NFL.com international schedule release, May 13, 2026
The slate opens with San Francisco 49ers vs. Los Angeles Rams at Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, in Week 1 on Sept. 10 at 8:35 p.m. ET, according to the NFL schedule release. Netflix is listed as the viewing platform for that game. The NFL also lists Baltimore Ravens vs. Dallas Cowboys at Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro in Week 3, with CBS, Paramount+ and NFL+ listed as the viewing options.
Other 2026 international games listed by the league include London, Dublin, Madrid, Berlin and Paris stops. The Jacksonville Jaguars and 49ers each have two international assignments, according to the NFL release, while 16 teams are part of the full international slate.
The second piece is domestic but still strategic. In a separate schedule item, the NFL said Green Bay will travel to Los Angeles for the league's inaugural Thanksgiving Eve game on Netflix. NFL.com lists the matchup for Week 12, Nov. 25, at 8 p.m. ET at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
"Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers will travel to face reigning AP NFL Most Valuable Player Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams on Thanksgiving Eve, Nov. 25." - NFL.com Thanksgiving Eve schedule release, May 13, 2026
What's Happening Now
The international slate gives the league a larger global footprint during the regular season. The Australia game gives the NFL a regular-season debut in a market where the time zone itself makes the broadcast window part of the product. The Brazil game sends Ravens-Cowboys to one of the world's best known soccer venues. The Paris game at Stade de France adds another first-time European setting to the rotation.
NFL Football Operations says the schedule makers create hundreds of thousands of possible schedules before selecting the final version. That official explainer says the schedule makers must consider fans, broadcast partners, stadium conflicts, competitive equity, bye weeks and travel while building a 272-game, 18-week schedule.
The operations page also says international games are a particular focus early in the scheduling process. For long travel, the league says schedule makers look at a three-week window around international games to reduce burdens on teams, including where a club plays before and after the trip.
That matters because international games create tradeoffs. A club can gain global exposure and league priority, but it may also lose a traditional home-market date or take on complex travel. Fans in the home city may get fewer games in their market. International fans get rare access to regular-season NFL inventory without flying to the United States.
The Netflix Piece
The Thanksgiving Eve game extends the NFL's use of Netflix into another holiday-adjacent slot. NFL.com previously said Netflix would stream the NFL's two Christmas Day marquee games in 2024 and at least one Christmas Day holiday game in 2025 and 2026 as part of a three-season deal.
"mark your calendar for Christmas Day in 2025 and 2026 when Netflix will be streaming at least one holiday game each year as part of this three-season deal" - NFL.com media-rights announcement, May 15, 2024
The verified point is narrow but important: the NFL has not framed the 2026 Thanksgiving Eve game as a newly announced rights package in the schedule item. The confirmed fact is that NFL.com lists Netflix as the viewing platform for Packers-Rams on Thanksgiving Eve and for 49ers-Rams in Australia.
For Netflix, live NFL inventory sits inside a much larger subscription business. Netflix reported $12.25 billion in revenue for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, according to its 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A live football window does not need to carry the company by itself. It can still matter if it keeps subscribers engaged, adds appointment viewing and helps sell the service as a live-event platform rather than only an on-demand library.
The NFL also gets a benefit. Streaming windows can create new national inventory without depending only on the Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday night and Thursday night grid that already defines the season. Holiday windows are especially valuable because fans are already gathered, advertisers can plan around appointment viewing and the league can package football as part of a broader cultural calendar.
The Competing Interests
The league's view is clear from the structure of the schedule. More international games let the NFL sell its brand to global fans, test venues and keep foreign markets invested in regular-season stakes. The league's Football Operations page says teams are guaranteed to play internationally at least once every eight years and says 2026 will have the most regular-season international games to date.
The team perspective is more complicated. The Rams appear in both the Melbourne opener and the Thanksgiving Eve Netflix game. The 49ers also have two international assignments. That gives both franchises global visibility, but it adds travel, recovery and preparation questions that clubs, players and coaches may measure differently than the league office.
The fan perspective splits in several directions. Fans in Australia, Brazil, France, Ireland, Germany, Spain and Britain get games that would otherwise require international travel. Fans in U.S. markets may lose convenient local timing or free-to-air access depending on which package carries a given game. Fans who subscribe to cable, broadcast, league products and streaming services may face a more fragmented map of how to watch.
Broadcast partners also have interests at stake. The NFL operations page says schedule makers must consider broadcast partners and maximize viewership while still maintaining competitive equity. That is the central tension of the 2026 rollout: the NFL wants global reach and platform flexibility, but it has to preserve the competitive and fan-access logic that made the domestic product valuable.
Economic Implications
The economics begin with scarcity. There are only 272 regular-season NFL games in an 18-week schedule, according to the league's schedule explainer. Moving nine of them abroad means more than 3% of the regular-season inventory will be used as international programming in 2026. That is a meaningful share for a league whose local home dates, national windows and partner obligations are all carefully allocated.
The venue effect is direct. Melbourne Cricket Ground, Maracana Stadium and Stade de France are not neutral backdrops. They become part of the product sold to fans, sponsors, tourism partners and broadcasters. A regular-season NFL game can draw hospitality spending, travel demand and international media attention, while the league gets a live test of whether a market can support repeat events.
The streaming effect is different. Netflix's SEC filing shows a company with quarterly revenue above $12 billion, so the Packers-Rams game is not primarily about one night's direct sales. The economic mechanism is retention and engagement. Live sports can reduce churn by giving subscribers a reason to show up at a specific time, and it can help a platform compete for advertisers and brand attention in a crowded entertainment market.
For fans, the cost is fragmentation. The international schedule includes games listed across Netflix, CBS, Paramount+, NFL+ and other NFL broadcast packages. A family that once thought of the NFL as mostly a Sunday local-TV habit now has to track international start times, streaming subscriptions and holiday windows. The league may see that as product expansion. Some fans may see it as another bill and another password.
By the Numbers
- 9 international games are listed for the 2026 regular season, according to NFL.com.
- 4 continents and 7 countries are included in the 2026 international slate, according to the NFL release.
- 16 teams are part of the international slate, with the Jaguars and 49ers assigned to two international games, according to NFL.com.
- 272 regular-season games make up the NFL schedule across 18 weeks, according to NFL Football Operations.
- $12.25 billion was Netflix's revenue for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, according to the company's SEC 10-Q filing.
What People Are Saying
"The NFL will undergo its most ambitious and lengthy globe-trotting journey to date during the 2026 campaign." - NFL.com international schedule release, May 13, 2026
"A pair of NFC heavyweights will lock up in the NFL's newest holiday offering." - NFL.com Thanksgiving Eve schedule release, May 13, 2026
"The schedule makers consider bye weeks and travel to maintain competitive equity." - NFL Football Operations schedule explainer
"The schedule makers consistently try to provide the NFL's fans and broadcast partners with a compelling and entertaining slate of games week after week." - NFL Football Operations schedule explainer
The Big Picture
The NFL's 2026 schedule release shows a league using the regular season as a global and digital business platform. The games still decide standings, but they also test new venues, reward media partners and place premium matchups where the league believes attention is available.
The next signals will come from the full schedule, team travel plans, player and union reaction, and local-market response from fans who lose home dates or need another streaming subscription. If the 2026 rollout draws strong audiences without major competitive complaints, the NFL will have more evidence that regular-season games can keep moving across borders and platforms.
