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NFL owners approved the extension of the regular season to 17 games on Tuesday, a long overdue move that will generate additional revenue for the nation’s richest sports league.
The players agreed to the extra play as part of their 2020 collective agreement, which gave the league the option to expand as early as the 2021 season. The preseason will be reduced from four games to three to maintain compliance with the collective agreement, which limits the total number of preseason and regular season games played to 20.
There will be one week off per team. The season will begin on Thursday evening September 9 and end on Sunday January 9, 2022. The Pro Bowl will be played on Sunday February 6, 2022 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and Super Bowl LVI at SoFi The stadium in Los Angeles has been postponed from one week, from February 6 to 13, 2022.
“This is a monumental moment in NFL history,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “The ABCs with players and the recent media deals allow us to improve the quality of the NFL experience for our fans. And one of the benefits of every team playing 17 regular season games is the possibility for us to continue. to develop our game around the world. “
The formula for planning a season with an odd number of games will consist of two parts. First, the AFC and NFC teams will alternate between eight and nine home games each year. AFC will have nine in 2021. The extra match will be a crossover based on the divisional standings from the previous year and the divisional schedule rotation from the previous two seasons.
The full schedule for 2021 will be released later this spring.
The NFL has said the enhanced season will ensure that starting in 2022, each team will play an international game at least once every eight seasons. Up to four games on neutral venues will be scheduled, with an initial focus on Canada, Europe, Mexico, South America and the United Kingdom. The league said interested teams can also volunteer to play at home internationally, as they currently can.
Although the NFL Players Association agreed to the change last year, some players have taken to social media in recent weeks to express their displeasure with their extra play. New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara tweeted it was “stupid … as hell” and Green Bay Packers safety Adrian Amos tweeted: “We really let this happen. ” Player salaries will not change, but will be paid over 18 weeks instead of 17. However, some player benefits will change.
The owners’ decision to activate the 17-game option will result in changes to off-season and in-season training, according to George Atallah, deputy executive director of external affairs for the NFLPA. Among them is a reduction in the maximum time that players can be required to spend at a team facility during the season. The NFLPA has been advocating since December to make last year’s virtual offseason permanent to reduce wear and tear on their bodies.
Tuesday’s approval came a year after the owners expanded the playoff field from 12 to 14 games, a move that created two more playoff games and is expected to generate $ 150 million in additional annual revenue. Most of the NFL’s income is shared with the players under the terms of the ABC; the addition of the 17th game pushes player distribution to 48.5% of shareable revenue.
Assurances of this expansion were incorporated into new media distribution rights the league announced earlier this month with Amazon, CBS, ESPN / ABC, FOX and NBC. According to multiple reports, these deals will bring the NFL and its players more than $ 100 billion in revenue between seasons 2023 and 2033.
The NFL has played 16 seasons of games since 1978, but some owners have been pushing it to expand for more than a decade. The league almost imposed it in 2014, without the players’ agreement, but ultimately deposited the savings plan as a bargaining chip for the next CBA.
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