NFL to open season on Wednesday, with Melbourne game slotted for Thursday

The opening week of the NFL schedule is slowly coming into focus.

Last month, we learned that the NFL is slated to open this season on a Wednesday night rather than the league’s traditional Thursday night kickoff. Initially, however, it was speculated that the Melbourne game between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers could be destined for that unusual window. Now, it appears that won’t be the case.

Instead, the Melbourne game will be played on Thursday, with a different game scheduled for the NFL’s Wednesday opener, which will air on NBC, according to a report by Joe Flint of The Wall Street Journal.

Some small NFL TV news. The first game of the regular season will be on Wednesday night on NBC (vs usual Thursday). The Melbourne game will be on Thursday — platform TBD. NFL can’t do a Friday game this year on opening week, hence the tweaks.

— Joe Flint (@JBFlint) March 17, 2026

One would presume that the Wednesday game will be the traditional NFL opener featuring the defending Super Bowl champion, which this upcoming season would see the Seattle Seahawks host a game from Lumen Field.

Unlike the past two seasons, the NFL will not be able to schedule a game for Friday night due to restrictions laid forth in the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. The league has been able to hold Friday games during opening week the past two years due to a quirk in the calendar in which the NFL season began on the first weekend, rather than the second weekend, of September.

So far, the NFL has not assigned a broadcast partner for the Melbourne game. It’s still unclear exactly what time that game will be played to accommodate both the local Australian audience and an American television audience.

Whatever the case, it seems clear that the NFL is looking to keep its first game of the season stateside and on a traditional broadcaster, just one day earlier than usual.