Projecting the 2026 NFL schedule’s most-watched nationwide TV video games

From a TV perspective, the NFL is coming off a record-breaking 2025 season:

• The Thanksgiving sport between the Kansas City Chiefs and Dallas Cowboys was the most-watched regular-season sport ever, with greater than 57 million viewers.

The Chiefs have dominated the highest of the nationwide TV scores rankings within the Patrick Mahomes period, and presuming he’s wholesome and enjoying after his knee harm and offseason restoration, the Chiefs’ slots on the nationwide TV schedule will proceed to loom among the many high viewers drivers (as you’ll discover under).

• The NFL averaged 18.7 million viewers throughout the season, the very best since 1989 (and up 10 % over 2024).

• Of the highest 100 most-watched TV applications of 2025, the NFL accounted for 89 of them.

• The Saturday evening wild-card sport between the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers was the most-streamed NFL sport ever, topping a number of streaming data set all through the season.

To make certain, the X-factor behind all these numbers — together with each enthusiastically promoted sports-TV viewers quantity you’ve gotten seen over the previous 12 months — is that Nielsen adjusted its industry-standard measurement system to (extra precisely) embrace digital and “out of home” viewing. The TV equal of a rising tide seemingly lifted viewers numbers for almost each sports activities broadcast on the market, together with the NFL; the follow-up to that’s whether or not video games this season exceed final 12 months’s numbers, keep flat or perhaps even decline a bit. However, primarily based on final 12 months, the most important video games will likely be gigantic viewers drivers, with holidays (does “NFL Week 1” rely?), prime time and even just a few common ol’ Sunday afternoons main the way in which.

With that in thoughts and the 2026 NFL schedule now formally launched, let’s have a look at a number of the most attention-grabbing contenders for the most important nationwide TV attracts of the season.

Thanksgiving: The feast

Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions (1 p.m. ET, CBS)
Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys (4:30 p.m. ET, Fox)
Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC)
Thursday, Nov. 26

It wasn’t simply Chiefs-Cowboys that drew a superlative viewers final 12 months; Packers-Lions was the second-most-watched sport of the season. In brief, Thanksgiving is the perennial TV monster. In 2026, the NFL couldn’t have designed a extra very best tripleheader to have interaction in ratings-maxxing.

Bears-Lions is likely one of the league’s greatest rivalries. The Cowboys are, on their very own, one of many league’s greatest TV attracts, however pairing Dallas with the Eagles is a traditional loathe-watch for the tens of hundreds of thousands of followers who can’t stand both group (however tune in en masse to look at each). In the Chiefs-Bills nightcap, so long as Mahomes is enjoying, the prime-time matchup between him and Josh Allen can be my high choose to be the NFL’s most-watched regular-season sport of 2026.

But over the previous few seasons, the NFL has redefined the boundaries of professional soccer on Thanksgiving in two significant methods:

First, by including the Black Friday sport, which launched in 2023. Last 12 months, the Bears-Eagles sport on Amazon Prime Video was watched by a mean of 16.3 million folks, qualifying it as blockbuster sports activities TV the day after Thanksgiving. In 2026, the sport options the Denver Broncos vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video).

• New for 2026 is a “Thanksgiving Eve” matchup, a Wednesday evening sport airing at 8 p.m. ET on Netflix to assist make your native highschool reunion rather less awkward. Given the high-profile matchup (Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams) and the truth that the Thanksgiving window is wildly in style with followers, this “first-ever” Wednesday sport may high Netflix’s Christmas viewers common of 23.7 million final season.

The Super Bowl rematch

New England Patriots at Seattle Seahawks (Week 1)
Wednesday, Sept. 9
8:20 p.m. ET, NBC

Last season’s Week 2 Super Bowl rematch between the Chiefs and Eagles was the third-most-watched sport of the common season and drew the most important viewers apart from Thanksgiving. The Chiefs are the league’s high TV draw, and the Eagles usually are not far behind — past the truth that it was a dramatic sport, that may be a large cause the Super Bowl between the 2 set a report for the most-watched Super Bowl ever. The Seahawks and Patriots didn’t match that prime final February, however they did ship the second-most-watched Super Bowl regardless of a lackluster sport.

In brief, “Super Bowl rematch” drives consideration, and “NFL season opener” additionally often performs exceptionally effectively. Making this one much more attention-grabbing, it will likely be solely the second time (2012) the league opens the season on a Wednesday evening. Between the names on the marquee, the novelty of the evening and the pent-up anticipation, count on an enormous viewers.

The latest Netflix experiment

Los Angeles Rams vs. San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia (Week 1)
Thursday, Sept. 10
8:35 p.m. ET, Netflix

The previous two Christmas Days, Netflix proved it might probably ship an viewers on a nontraditional NFL TV platform (Beyoncé helped). That was regardless of some grumbling about the way to discover the sport or the additional prices required to entry it. By now, it’s effectively established that the NFL has video games on Netflix, and followers have tuned in.

True to its technique to “eventize” every part, Netflix and the NFL naturally chosen an early-season, weeknight TV window the streaming community should itself. Thursday of Week 1 can be the normal evening the league airs its season opener, so pure consciousness will likely be excessive. (Now, about that $8.99 cost to entry it …)

That the Week 1 sport will function the Rams — the present odds-on Super Bowl favourite led by the reigning NFL MVP, quarterback Matthew Stafford — will assist with curiosity. But the inherent fan curiosity within the NFL’s opening week can have folks’s consideration. The open query is whether or not Netflix’s NFL ambitions are bona fide sufficient to drive large viewers numbers outdoors of Christmas.

(Speaking of Christmas, searching for a powerful contender to finish up among the many high 5 most-watched regular-season video games for the 2026 season? I’ve my eye on Fox on Christmas evening. Prime Video delivered 21 million viewers on Christmas evening final 12 months. Imagine what the Fox NFL juggernaut will do with a matchup between the Seahawks and Rams in prime time to wrap up a Christmas Day tripleheader.)

Sunday evening: The folks’s champ

Kansas City Chiefs at Seattle Seahawks (Week 7)
Sunday, Oct. 25
8:20 p.m. ET, NBC

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” has been America’s most-watched prime-time TV program for 15 straight years. That isn’t altering this season. With new analyst Mike Tomlin chiming in from the studio present, the one query is which of the Sunday matchups will draw essentially the most consideration. (Keep in thoughts the NFL retains the precise to “flex” in higher matchups because the season progresses, primarily based on accidents or the state of the standings.) I’ll put a marker down on Chiefs at Seahawks in Week 7 — the viewers juggernaut versus the defending champs, in entrance of probably the most telegenic house crowds within the league. (Also receiving consideration: Cowboys at New York Giants in Week 1; Bills at Packers in Week 14; any potential flexes late within the season.)

Monday evening: The Super Bowl 61 warm-up

New England Patriots at Kansas City Chiefs (Week 15)
Monday, Dec. 21
8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN

Have you heard? ESPN is broadcasting the Super Bowl subsequent January. (Kidding: If you watch ESPN, you’re very conscious.) That means the community’s stacked “Monday Night Football” schedule will likely be chock-full of promotions to be sure to know that. That’s not a dig, by the way in which; it’s the greatest factor to occur on ESPN within the community’s historical past, and I’d flip it right into a yearlong pageant, too. The 2025 season was a hit — it was the second-most-watched “Monday Night Football” season since ESPN began airing the sport, together with the always-rollicking alt-cast that includes Peyton and Eli Manning.

Though Week 1 of MNF will all the time draw enormous numbers (and this season, Chiefs vs. Broncos will get a large opening-week viewers), I’d say Chiefs-Pats in Week 15 is the one I’m eyeing as a possible top-five regular-season scores sport, although it’s extremely depending on the place Kansas City and New England sit within the standings. ESPN will go heavy on MNF simulcasts on ABC, which has the potential to juice the whole viewers tuning in.

(I don’t wish to short-shrift Amazon Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football,” which in 2025 had the most-watched season of Thursday evening video games within the 20 years since Thursday evening video games have been established. Prime Video additionally lucked into Christmas falling on a Thursday in 2025. When mixed with the participation of the Chiefs, the NFL’s hottest TV draw, in a rivalry sport versus Denver, Prime Video’s sport final Christmas was a large success. Though there will likely be no Christmas bump in 2026, for the fourth straight 12 months, Prime Video will air its Black Friday sport. Of the remainder of the Thursday evening slate, the one almost definitely to maneuver the needle ought to be Chiefs at Rams in Week 13.)

Oh, yeah: Sunday afternoons (keep in mind them?)

Chiefs at Broncos (Week 8)
Sunday, Nov. 1
4:25 p.m. ET, CBS

It is a bigger dialog for an additional day that the prime-time video games, the vacation video games, the worldwide video games and the streaming video games proceed to take up a lot nationwide consideration. After all, the league’s TV success is constructed on the sturdy basis of Sunday afternoons — the 2 home windows at 1 p.m. ET and 4:25-ish p.m. ET (with Scott Hanson’s NFL RedZone “Witching Hour” delighting followers between the 2). Other than Thanksgiving, final season’s high three most-watched regular-season video games of the season have been on a Sunday afternoon — all that includes the Chiefs, for what it’s value.

That’s why any choose for essentially the most notable Sunday afternoon sport of the season has to have the Chiefs (together with, TV networks are hoping, Mahomes, who’s by far the most important particular person participant draw within the league). CBS has scheduled the Chiefs in 4 separate “national” Sunday afternoon home windows. Give me Chiefs-Broncos in Week 8 with essentially the most potential to steer the season’s Sunday afternoon scores standings, however Bills-Pats in Week 13 additionally has the potential to crash the regular-season high 5 most-watched record.

Fox’s “America’s Game of the Week” additionally dominates Sunday afternoons, airing nationally. Fox’s NFC-heavy bundle is all the time studded with the manufacturers that ship the most important audiences: the Cowboys, Eagles, Packers, 49ers and Bears. Chicago at Green Bay in Week 5 feels prefer it has the potential to be large, however Week 17’s Lions-Bears sport in Chicago looks like it may have potential playoff implications, amping the eye.