Creating the NFL Schedule

GAME TIMES AND BROADCAST PARTNERS

The league’s six broadcast partners (CBS, Fox, NBC, NFL Network, ESPN and Prime Video) all want each week’s best matchups to air on their networks so they can attract the largest audiences.

The NFL's marquee matchups often are scheduled to air during the week’s premier time slots — Thursday, Sunday or Monday nights or the late game on Sunday afternoons. The league typically schedules the Super Bowl champion at home for the Thursday night game that kicks off the new season.

This season, the league will schedule two games on Saturday of Week 16 with NBC airing a game at 1:00 p.m. ET and FOX airing a game at 4:30 p.m. ET. The four teams that play that day, will play again on Wednesday, December 25, against a different opponent. These Christmas Day games will air on Netflix, marking their debut as a live game partner for the NFL.

In Week 17, three of the five designated matchups will be played on Saturday with the remainder being played on Sunday. Specific dates and start times for the designated Week 17 matchups will be determined and announced later during the season.

In Week 18, two games will be played on Saturday with the remainder being played on Sunday. Specific dates, start times, and networks for Week 18 matchups will be determined and announced following the conclusion of Week 17.

See the full 2024 NFL Schedule.

Most NFL games are played on Sunday afternoons, with early games starting at 1:00 p.m. ET and the late games starting at either 4:05 p.m. ET or 4:25 p.m. ET, depending on whether the game is part of a network doubleheader.

The Sunday afternoon games are broadcast on CBS and FOX; for the second straight year, games do not have a predetermined network assignment based on conference affiliation of participating teams. This allows the scheduling team more flexibility to build Sunday afternoon windows across CBS and FOX.

The schedule will feature doubleheaders on both CBS and FOX and every market will see four Sunday afternoon games in Weeks 15 and 18. Over Weeks 1-14, 16-17, FOX and CBS will each have eight doubleheaders. In those weeks, one network will show games in both Sunday afternoon time slots, while the other will air only one game in either of the two time slots. Doubleheader weeks generally alternate between networks, but not always. It is possible for one network to have doubleheaders on consecutive weeks, but not three weeks in a row.