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The NFL’s Big Chill

By moving up the timeline of its rights negotiations to this year, the NFL has thrown the entire sports market into chaos, as secondary leagues (and they’re all secondary to the Shield) scramble to make new deals while the networks prepare to dig deeper than ever.

Pittsburgh Steelers snow nfl
In a world where Disney is spending $2.6 billion a year on NBA rights, the NFL’s 11-year, $110 billion rights deals seem like Canal Street handbag prices. Photo: Nick Cammett/Getty Images
John Ourand
February 5, 2026

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Walking around San Francisco this week, the full extent of the National Football League’s decades of empire-building was on its annual display—the only exception, of course, being Shedeur Sanders headlining the flag football “Pro Bowl Games” at the Moscone Center. And the story animating the sotto voce conversations on the sidelines of Radio Row had nothing to do with Bad Bunny, the potential 18th game, or Kraft vs. Belichick, but rather the truest manifestation of the league’s awesome power: when commissioner Roger Goodell will preempt the end of his league’s current media deals and convince his existing partners (and some new ones) to cough up an ungodly fortune for the pleasure of broadcasting America’s Game.