The NFL Officially Defends Its 2026 Broadcasting Schedule

The NFL is defending its 2026 regular season schedule.

The league has faced criticism as it gives more and more games to streaming platforms, like Netflix, Peacock, Amazon Prime, etc. Most of the NFL's games still come on networks like NBC, FOX, CBS, etc. However, as more and more games move to streaming, fans get more fed up.

It shouldn't be that complicated of a process to figure out where your team is going to be playing every week, but with streaming platforms taking a bigger percentage of the pie, it's happening.

The league has been under pressure, including from U.S. President Donald Trump, but the NFL is defending the move.

NFL media executive Hans Schroeder defended the league's broadcasting schedule for 2026.

League defends 2026 schedule

NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroeder on Friday suggested to ESPN the league has no intention of pulling back from its partnerships with streaming services.

"We love our model," he said. "We think we have the most fan-friendly model there is of any sport or entertainment as far as distribution."

The NFL says it airs close to 90 percent of its games on free broadcast networks.

"We think broadcast [networks] have been an incredible home," he said. "And, now, we also know fans are increasingly spending their time on other platforms as well. They tune into broadcast for the NFL and that's where we want to be. But we also want to be on these platforms with a limited amount of our games where we know our NFL fans are already as well.

"When we're going onto Netflix, we're going onto a platform that is already massively adopted and a huge number of viewers on that platform already, including a huge number of NFL fans."

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This story was originally published May 17, 2026 at 5:00 PM.