NFL Exec Mike North Talks 2026 Schedule Release

For about a week every spring, Mike North is the most-texted person in football. The NFL's VP of broadcast planning came on the show for the full conversation, and Kirk Morrison guided him through everything from the World Cup to a regretful Eagles-Rams scheduling decision.

North opened with his own self-portrait.

"I'm popular for days," North said. "But then I go right back in my hole. They take me out of my hole, they parade me around for a couple days, and then they put me in my hole, and I'll see you next spring."

Asked what the biggest challenge was for 2026, North's answer was that the bar keeps moving.

"Everybody's gotten smarter," North said. "We were lucky for decades, sitting in that room back there with Val Pinchbeck, hanging the tags on the board one at a time, and we were lucky to get a schedule done. Now stakes are higher. There's 100 billion reasons why we need to do a good job here."

He rattled off the constraint set. Stadium availability. Player health and safety. Weather. Travel. Rest disparity. Bye weeks. Nine international games. A Wednesday night game before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving and Christmas slates that have become their own thing.

"This isn't getting any easier," North said.

The FIFA World Cup is the biggest one-time constraint. North said it mostly hits the preseason.

"The World Cup will be done by mid-July, I guess, and they'll figure out what they're going to do with the seating configurations and the turf and the locker rooms," North said. "There was a couple of venues that said, hey, we could use an extra week. Maybe put us on the road week one of the preseason just to make sure we're ready for week two."

The bigger ongoing scheduling tax is that NFL stadiums are only used 10 times a year. Concert tours, conventions and special events occasionally wander into the football calendar.

"No team ever wants to say to their coach or general manager, hey, we had to put ourselves on the road a couple of weeks in a row, or lack of early-season home primetime games, because we had to block the building for a rock concert," North said. "It's a fine line to tread."

Software has changed the calculus.

"Now the software, the hardware, our tech partners, the strategy, the optimization, the heuristics, all the work that goes into finding the best solution to this puzzle, we can accommodate it for the most part," North said.

The broadcast partner map is wider than the old CBS-and-Fox setup. North does not see it as a money question.

"It's really about how do we get the games where the fans are ingesting their content," North said.

The four games returning to ESPN this year were a big move. They came from the Monday Night Football side-by-side doubleheader he had to give up.

"I still don't understand how we lost containment on that," North said. "Everybody hated it. I thought it was fun. I thought it was a good idea."

Some of the freed-up games went to Netflix. Some went to NBC. Some went to Fox.

"Broadcast television's been very good to the National Football League," North said. "There's a reach that's still unduplicated by the streaming partners. But you're starting to see an Amazon game get up to broadcast television level viewership numbers."

The data points were specific. Amazon's wild card game last year did 30 million viewers, which North said was as much as any broadcast network had ever done on a Saturday night wild card. Netflix's Christmas game did 28 million.

"The fans are there," North said. "They vote with their remotes."

He defended the multi-platform reality with a line that landed in the room.

"Everybody's got Netflix," North said. "Everybody watches Stranger Things. Everybody's got Amazon Prime. We all need paper towels."

The Wednesday Night Football before Thanksgiving slot is the new experiment. North said the way to break in a new window is to put a good game in it.

"A good game like Packers-Rams on Wednesday night," North said. "A good game like Niners-Rams in Melbourne. A good game on Christmas like Seattle-San Francisco on Fox."

Morrison pivoted to the Raiders' lack of primetime games. None. Zero. New head coach, top draft pick, plenty of off-season juice.

"None of us know when or if Mendoza's going to see the field this year," North said. "Obviously Kirk Cousins is a competent quality quarterback in this league. He may well have them relevant."

The earned-it rule applies.

"We always say you play your way into primetime," North said. "You don't draft your way into primetime. You don't fire your coach into primetime."

The back door is flexible scheduling.

"If the Raiders have a better than we thought, unexpected season, that's what flexible scheduling is for down the stretch," North said.

The opposite case is the Rams, with a record-tying seven primetime standalone games.

"They have the league MVP, superstars on both sides of the ball," North said. "They've earned it. And what a schedule. Green Bay, a couple of San Frans, a Dallas. What are we supposed to do with those games? A Buffalo, a Philly. Those games have to find their way into big national windows."

The regret on the record was specific.

"That Rams-Eagles game, Sunday at 1:00, we couldn't even find a primetime home for an Eagles-Rams game," North said. "That's an embarrassment of riches."

Morrison asked when the schedule process actually starts. North admitted he is already looking at 2027.

"We're getting even more international games, probably going to get to 10 next year," North said. "Already know 14 of the 17 games for each of the teams."

The 2026 process started the day after the regular season ended.

"We reach out to the clubs. What do we need to know? Are you looking for international? Do you have stadium availability issues? Tell us what we did wrong last year. They're not shy. They remind us."

The final piece of the puzzle is always the Super Bowl champion, because that team hosts the opening kickoff game on NBC. From there, the computer spins for 14 straight weeks, with daily checkpoints with the commissioner.

"If we hit him with something right at the end that surprises him, we did not do a good job managing that," North said.

The example he reached for was perfect.

"We gave him a schedule at one point that had Atlanta New Orleans on the Monday night slate and had it in Atlanta," North said. "And he said, you dummies, put it in New Orleans. It's the 20th anniversary of the Superdome reopening."

The commissioner did not give his blessing on the final 2026 schedule until Tuesday.

The Seahawks-Patriots Week 1 opener was a Super Bowl rematch decision. North said the window for a rematch to feel like a rematch is narrow.

"Once you get to like week six, seven, eight, nobody's looking back at February," North said. "Everybody's looking forward to this February."

The proof was last year. Philly-KC Super Bowl rematch in Week 2 did 32 million viewers on a Sunday afternoon on Fox. Other options were on the table.

"The Giants would have worked. Chicago would have worked. Kansas City would have been interesting if we knew for certain Mahomes was coming back," North said.

The Disney year, with the Super Bowl on ESPN, gets the full promotional machine.

"They bring a promotional machinery that nobody else brings," North said. "It's going to be the biggest Super Bowl ever."

The Monday Night Football schedule reflects the upgrade.

"When you take away those Monday night side-by-sides, now they've got this opportunity to take some of those Monday Night games on ESPN and simulcast them on ABC," North said. "You take a game like Dallas-Philly, arguably a top two, top three game of the season, and put it on Monday Night Football simulcast on ABC. That's a message. That's a signal."

North did not forget the calendar perk.

"Super Bowl's on President's Day weekend this year," North said. "Nobody's going to work on Monday. Nobody's going to school. We've got a nice three-day weekend for the Super Bowl. Call it a national holiday like it deserves."

Morrison closed by turning the table. What does Mike North look for when his own schedule comes out?

"When is my bye week," North said. "That's all I care about. That's the one week that you can guarantee it's some time off to just get away from football, be with family. Always wanted to know where I was at in the months of December and January, because that's when the weather change, cold weather."

Then North called out Morrison directly.

"One time you stuck me going to Cleveland in December," Morrison said. "I blame you, Mike."

North made the case for the December trip.

"That's the competitive advantage that the Browns have," North said. "Asking the fans to come out when they're not competitive is one thing. But when they are competitive, that's their competitive advantage. Same thing with the Florida teams in September."

The conversation closed where every primetime conversation closes.

"When the primetime games come out, trust me, the ticket requests come out as well," North said.