NFL media exec: ‘We’re gonna be ready’ for potential early TV rights negotiations

In September, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suggested the league could begin negotiating new media rights deals “as early as next year” despite current deals going through the 2032 season. Prior to Puck’s John Ourand first reporting the possibility of an early renegotiation earlier this year, conventional wisdom suggested that the league would seek new deals after the 2029 opt-out option in its current contracts.

Now, it seems pretty clear that the NFL will seek new deals even earlier.

In a recent interview with Ourand, NFL media executive Hans Schroeder clarified Goodell’s comments from September, saying they were originally a bit “misconstrued.” But Schroeder did nothing to temper expectations that the league will be active in talking to its broadcast partners about new deals before the 2029 option.

“We are always talking to our partners,” Schroeder said. “There’s a reason we’re talking to our partners and all of the sudden we’re playing a Peacock game on Friday night in Brazil last year. There’s a reason you fast-forward to this year and we expanded the YouTube partnership to play this year in Brazil on Friday night. Fox has a Week 16 doubleheader on Saturday with some great traditional football matchups. We’re always having conversations with our partners.

“And I think, to be clear, it may be a little bit more precise with the commissioner’s comments because I think some of that got misconstrued. I think he said it could be as early as this year, I don’t think he gave a definitive that it’ll happen. But I think from our perspective, we’re gonna be ready and we’re always ready whenever our partners want to talk. We’re happy to talk to them and engage, and we want to listen,” Schroeder concluded.

For the NFL’s broadcast partners, it makes sense to be in constant communication. NFL games are the most important programming on television, and any opportunity to further embed your business with the league needs to be considered. For the league, there are always opportunities to further maximize the revenue generated from game inventory with one-off events like the Brazil game.

Of course, reworking entire broadcast arrangements are a much larger lift, and would provide a much larger revenue windfall, than selling a few games here and there. So while it might not happen next year, it seems the league is positioning itself to negotiate new deals at least a year or two before its 2029 option.