NFL Network will now fall under the ESPN umbrella. Photo courtesy of Anthony Quintano, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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The NFL Media division will now be under the control of ESPN.
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By Ben Rosen
TAMPA, Fla. — The ESPN acquisition of the National Football League (NFL) media division goes into effect on April 1. This will see ESPN have full control over the NFL Media assets, including NFL Network and NFL RedZone, while the NFL gets a 10% equity stake in ESPN, according to Front Office Sports.
“Many skeptics doubted there was demand for a network featuring round-the-clock, yearlong NFL news, information and analysis,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a memo to NFL Network staff, according to Austin Karp of the Sports Business Journal. “But we knew our fans. We knew if we built it, they would come.”
The NFL Network debuted in 2003 and has been the centerpiece of NFL Media ever since. NFL RedZone is another asset that ESPN is acquiring as part of the deal.
“It is no surprise that the fruits of your labor would be attractive to an industry leader like ESPN as they look to serve the insatiable appetites of NFL fans,” Goodell wrote in the memo, according to Sports Business Journal.
“This is an exciting day for sports fans,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a press release when the deal was first announced on Aug. 5, 2025. “By combining these NFL media assets with ESPN’s reach and innovation, we’re creating a premier destination for football fans.”
As part of this deal, the Monday Night Football doubleheaders that have occurred over the last number of seasons will not be happening. ESPN inherits three games from the previous seven-game NFL Network package, and the games that would have previously been part of doubleheaders will be reallocated.
On March 11, Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported that the NFL might take one of the four games it will be selling the rights to because of the ESPN deal and play it on Thanksgiving Eve. This comes a few years after the NFL started playing games on Black Friday. The NFL has not officially announced who will air those four games.
“We’re looking into that window,” NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroder said to NBC Sports reporter Charlean Williams. “We think when we look at the calendar and look at other natural nights that we could aggregate and serve our fans, and deliver a unique-size audience, that’s a night that jumps out to us.”
As Marchand noted in his article, a streaming platform will likely acquire the four-game package. It remains to be seen if the NFL will sell all four games together or individually. Either way, do not expect Fox, CBS, or NBC to acquire the games for their network packages. NBC-owned Peacock, YouTube — which Marchand noted — and Netflix would be logical candidates for the rights.
As part of this TV scheduling shuffle, it is reasonable to assume that some of the international games that previously aired in standalone windows on NFL Network will now air on CBS or Fox in Sunday afternoon regional windows. The NFL is pushing the limits of how many standalone windows it can have. Only so many games can be taken away from CBS and Fox from a math standpoint. The Sunday regional windows still need quality games and a sufficient number of games.