Report explains why 2024 NFL schedule release was delayed

For a piece published on Monday, Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated addressed why the NFL moved the schedule release for the 2024 regular season to this coming Wednesday. 

"The schedule was set to be released last week, but the NFL’s process of pulling back two games from the Sunday of Week 17 and putting them on Christmas Day, a Wednesday this year, pushed things back to this coming Wednesday," Breer wrote. "The league pledged previously to only play games on Christmas on days that it traditionally plays — in other words, within the Thursday-to-Monday window — but strong ratings and the revenue they can create scuttled that plan, and so here we are with the league’s true intentions laid bare."

Breer previously ripped NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and team owners for holding a pair of games on Christmas Day 2024 when the holiday falls on a Wednesday. 

As Breer mentioned on Monday, though, the league attracted over 27 million viewers for each of its three games played on Christmas 2023. There is now no reason to believe that the NFL will ever pass on having at least two games played each Christmas regardless of when the holiday occurs. 

It was reported ahead of this past weekend that Netflix had emerged as the "likely winner" for the rights to this year's Christmas Day NFL games. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk wrote last week that the league "wants at least $50M — and ideally as much as $100M — for each of the Christmas games."

Meanwhile, Breer noted on Monday that Goodell is figuratively "pulling out every couch cushion looking for every spare quarter" while trying to get the league to $25B in annual revenue. This past February, Kurt Badenhausen of Sportico said that the NFL topped $20B in revenue for this past season.

"But if they’re going to put the burden on players to pull the agreed-upon (by owners, not players) Sunday-Saturday-Wednesday turn, and make team employees top-to-bottom work on this particular major holiday, even when putting games on that holiday means shoehorning it into the calendar, then let’s call this what this is and be honest about the goal here: It’s about money," Breer concluded in the schedule-related portion of Monday's article. "Which, again, is why the schedule release is this week rather than last week."

Next year's schedule release could include the NFL shifting to a format that involves teams playing two preseason games and 18 regular-season contests. The current collective bargaining agreement expiring in 2031 could result in the complete elimination of the preseason and the NFL expanding the regular season to either 19 or 20 games per club. 

As for the upcoming campaign, it was learned Monday that the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs will host the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL's regular-season opener on Sept. 5. It was unclear as of Monday afternoon if the league will announce an agreement with Netflix regarding the Christmas Day games on Wednesday.