NFL Won't Have Week 1 Friday Game During 2026 Season After Chiefs-Chargers in Brazil

This Friday's Week 1 matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil will be the last Week 1 Friday game for a while.

Per The Athletic's Matt Moret, NFL executive vice president and COO Hans Schroeder said the NFL won't legally be able to have a Friday game during the 2026 season because of "an antitrust provision in the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 that bans broadcasts of professional football by any station within 75 miles of a high school or college football game."

The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 states that professional leagues cannot hold games on any Friday or Saturday from the second Friday in September through the second Saturday in December.

The NFL typically begins its season the Thursday after Labor Day, and the holiday coming earlier in the month has allowed the league to hold Friday games over the last two seasons.

Next year, Labor Day falls on Sept. 7, meaning the NFL season won't start until the second Thursday of the month, therefore barring a Friday night game. If the league applies the same logic moving forward, the next time we might see a Week 1 Friday night matchup would be 2029, when Labor Day falls on Sept. 3.

Congress passed the SBA in 1961 to keep high school and college football from having to compete against the NFL. With most high school games being played on Friday and college games predominantly being played on Saturday, the NFL playing on those days would, in theory, pull away much of the audience.

Though the SBA mostly prevents the NFL from playing games on Fridays for most of the season, the league has found a way to play on Black Friday—the day after Thanksgiving. The Black Friday games kick off at 3 p.m. ET and end before the SBA's Friday Night Lights Out begins.

The NFL could take that same approach to play games on the first Friday of the season, but the early kickoff time would likely mean sacrificing viewership.

The NFL season begins Thursday with a matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys. The Chiefs will face the Chargers in São Paulo on Friday before a full slate of games on Sunday and a meeting between the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears on Monday.