The National Football League has announced that the regular schedule will have 17 games and is reducing the number of preseason games to three, in an effort to generate additional revenue for the most popular sport in the United States.
Posted on March 30, 2021
As expected, NFL team owners approved the change on Tuesday, the first to the regular season schedule in 43 years. By 1978, the league had increased the number of fixtures from 14 to 16.
As a result, the Super Bowl will be brought forward a week, and will take place on February 13, in the heart of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Incidentally, the NBC network owns the television rights for both events.
Additional games will consist of inter-association duels, depending on the position of the teams in the standings the previous season. American Association clubs will host the 17e game in 2021.
Beyond next season, the league anticipates that some of the additional games will take place outside of the United States.
Commissioner Roger Goodell called the moment “monumental” for the NFL.
“The collective agreement with the players and the recent agreements reached with the media provide us with the foundation to improve the quality of the NFL experience for our fans. And one of the benefits for each team of playing 17 regular season games will be to continue to grow our sport around the world,” said Goodell.
In addition, the NFL is considering playing its games at full stadiums next season, Goodell said.
During the 2020 season, a total of 119 games – including the playoffs – were played in front of spectators. A total of 1.2 million people attended in-person games.
“We are discussing scenarios to accommodate fans across the country at all stadiums,” said Goodell, who sounded optimistic.
“We all want to see each of our fans again. Football without spectators is not the same, and we expect to see full stadiums next season. »
This year, under the new schedule format, clubs from the American Conference East will host clubs from the National Conference East in Week 17.
Teams from the National Conference West will visit teams from the American Conference North, and teams from the National Conference South will face those from the American Conference South.
As for the teams of the North Section of the National Conference, they will face those of the West Section of the American Conference. This includes a tasty duel to be expected between quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers and Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs.
The full schedule will be released in May, but we already know that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will kick off the season on Thursday, September 9, against an as-yet-unknown opponent. The regular season will end on January 9.
The Super Bowl game will be played at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
