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Not to offend anyone, but are we sure there is no such thing as too much football?
On Wednesday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the NFL is “considering” adding a game the night before Thanksgiving to its annual schedule, possibly beginning as early as the 2026 season. Of course, the NFL doesn’t do much “considering” these days. The league just does it.
And considering the NFL is buying four extra games for (probably) one streamer, it’s safe to expect a game on Thanksgiving Eve as soon as this season.
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Micah Parsons #1 of the Green Bay Packers takes a bite of the turkey leg after the game against the Detroit Lions at Ford Field on November 27, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
As for the league’s motivation, Netflix currently pays the NFL $75 million dollars per game. Exclusively streaming a game the night before Thanksgiving could cost a similar amount.
With a market capitalization approaching $4 trillion, YouTube’s parent company Alphabet is positioned to outbid any potential rivals. YouTube’s vice president of subscriptions, Christian Oestlien, also recently expressed interest in adding more NFL games to the platform.
“We want YouTube to be a core part of their media distribution,” Oestlien told The Athletic.
By way of background, the expectation is that the Wednesday night game will be broadcast over the rest of the Thanksgiving and Black Friday slate.
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Here’s a look at the potential 10-day football stretch in November:
- Saturday: Full college football slate
- Sunday: Full NFL slate
- Monday: Monday night football
- Tuesday: MACtion Wednesday: NFL game
- Thanksgiving: The NFL games
- Black Friday: NFL Game
- Saturday: college football rivalry week
- Sunday: Full NFL slate
- Monday: Monday night football
Even if you don’t count the college football games, that’s a lot of football. It also follows a familiar pattern of further diluting the NFL product whose popularity was once tied to its scarcity.
Thanksgiving football is a tradition, although waking up that morning to watch the first games of the new week is less exciting if there was already a game the night before. Likewise, NFL RedZone gained cultural appeal as a way to follow a series of exciting Sunday matchups at once. Still, 10 teams will have already played on the first Sunday after Thanksgiving.
Dallas Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens (3) celebrates by eating turkey after the game against the Kansas City Chiefs at AT&T Stadium on Nov. 27, 2025. (Kevin Jairaj/Imagn Images)
Additionally, there would still be three nationally televised games left between Sunday afternoon (which is national for most of the country), Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football.
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And there simply aren’t enough good, interesting teams to spread the national program so widely.
Last year, only one of the teams that played on Thanksgiving made the playoffs, the Packers. The other five did not: Chiefs, Cowboys, Bengals, Ravens and Lions.
The much touted Christmas Day slate was worse. Cowboys vs. The Commanders featured two teams already eliminated from the postseason. Chiefs vs. The Broncos had a Kansas City team without Patrick Mahomes, who was also already eliminated from the playoffs. Lions vs. The Vikings had two teams out of the playoffs in a 23-to-10 game with Max Brosmer quarterbacking Minnesota.
“But, Bobby, don’t watch if you don’t like it. Go see a true crime doctor,” an X user is about to demand.
Look, maybe I will. However, most of you will not. And no one is arguing that Americans won’t watch the extra games on TV.
Still, the prevalence of poorly played nationally televised games, combined with a lack of exciting games on Sunday, will at some point push viewers to one day, wait for it, skip a game or two.
The league is also not as invincible as it presents itself.
Jordan Love #10 of the Green Bay Packers takes a bite of a turkey leg after the game against the Detroit Lions at Ford Field on November 27, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
Last season was not the victory that the league touts. The NFL claims a 10 percent year-over-year viewership increase, marking the second-highest audience average since tracking began in 1988. But that’s not exactly true.
The TV industry believes that with Nielsen changing its tracking method to Big Data + Panel last August, estimates for live sports events have increased by approx. 8%. So the 2025 regular season did not register a true double-digit increase.
Using the same logic, the Super Bowl drop was probably closer to 7 to 10% instead of the 2%.
These are not dramatic collapses. But the idea that the NFL continues to gain popularity year after year regardless of its scheduling decisions is misleading.
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Call me all the names you want. We don’t need football matches on Wednesdays and Fridays, early Sunday mornings in Europe and certainly somehow on Tuesdays.
We also shouldn’t need six to seven different services/channels to watch the games, as the expansion of Thanksgiving week football would require.
