{"id":471869,"date":"2026-02-13T06:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/471869\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T06:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:53:10","slug":"nfl-2026-season-reportedly-will-begin-on-a-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/471869\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL 2026 season reportedly will begin on a Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John Ourand of Puck <a href=\"https:\/\/puck.news\/newsletter_content\/the-nba-star-crisis-espns-super-bowl-lxi-ad-blitz-a-wasserman-defector\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">reports<\/a> that Week 1 of the NFL season is expected to include the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers playing in Melbourne, Australia, and is expected to feature a Wednesday game, which could very well be that Melbourne matchup.<\/p>\n<p>According to Ourand\u2019s industry sources, the Rams-49ers game \u201cwill occur during the opening week of the season, either on Wednesday or Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks will host the NBC game that traditionally opens the season.<\/p>\n<p>However, according to Ourand, it remains to be seen if that game will be on Thursday like it usually is, or rather on Wednesday, due to the uncertainty of the Melbourne game scheduling.<\/p>\n<p>If the NFL chooses to put the Melbourne game on Wednesday, the Seahawks game from Seattle reportedly would stay on Thursday. But if the NFL selects Thursday for the Melbourne game, the Seahawks would play on NBC on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s been much conversation about when the Melbourne game would take place, and with the travel and scheduling dilemmas that it demands. There\u2019s a 19-hour time difference between Pacific Time and Melbourne, there\u2019s the crazy travel each way (flights typically ranging from 14.5 to 16 hours), and there are the mental and physical adjustments that come with such travel and time changes. So, it would make sense if the NFL chooses to opt for the earliest possible date \u2014 which appears to be Wednesday, September 9 \u2014 in an effort to allow the Rams and 49ers to get more rest ahead of Week 2.<\/p>\n<p>While we know that the Seahawks game will be on NBC, the NFL is <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/nfl\/auctioning-media-rights-australia-game.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">auctioning off media rights<\/a> to the Melbourne game, and Ourand notes that those negotiations \u201cwith streaming companies\u201d are still taking place.<\/p>\n<p>The official 2026 NFL schedule is expected to be released in mid-May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Ourand of Puck reports that Week 1 of the NFL season is expected to include the Los&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[2840,49,48,1749,13586,514,24178,948,1739,82],"class_list":["post-471869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-australia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-melbourne","tag-nfl","tag-roger-goodell","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}