Why NFL schedule release day illustrates how the league owns the entire year

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Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic’s weekly sports business cheat sheet. (Want to receive it as an email every Wednesday? Subscribe here.)

Name-dropped today: Pete Rose, Howard Katz, Michael Jordan, Cooper Flagg, Pope Leo XIV, Jordon Hudson and Bill Belichick, Claudio Cabrera, Malcolm Glazer and more. Let’s go:

Driving the Conversation

NFL owns the calendar with schedule release day

The No. 1, hands-down, license-to-Harvard Business School case study about how the business of the NFL has subsumed the sports calendar like a gridiron Galactus is tonight: “schedule release day,” when a mere list of games launches millions of hours of reporting, consumption, podcasts, TV segments, social memes, betting action and more.

How big is this day?

• So big that the NFL made a special announcement during the draft simply to announce the date of schedule release day.
• So big that, for team social media squads battling to see who can make the most viral schedule video, it’s their Super Bowl, Oscars and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one.
• So big that the “day” is really days, plural: Announcements started Monday (Eagles-Cowboys season opener, Chiefs on Christmas), continued Tuesday (a record seven international games) and lead up to tonight’s full reveal at 8 p.m. ET.
• So big that NFL schedule honcho Howard Katz — releasing his final slate before retirement — got a special profile in The Athletic.

Five dates that will be vastly more important to the NFL’s business than your typical Sunday or Monday in the fall:

• Thursday, Sept. 4: The Eagles-Cowboys season kickoff on NBC might end up the most-watched network game of the regular season.
• Friday, Sept. 5: Chargers vs. TBA (most likely the Chiefs, per Nate Taylor and Daniel Popper reporting from a few weeks ago) will be the first NFL game ever streamed exclusively on YouTube, live from Brazil. Will likely smash the streaming audience record of 24-ish million from last Christmas on Netflix.
• Friday, Nov. 28: Another Eagles game, this time on Black Friday and airing on Amazon Prime Video (ahead of an NBA doubleheader — AMZN wants to own the day in both sports and shopping).
• Saturday, Dec. 20: Two heavyweight NFL rivalry games on Fox (Commanders-Eagles, Packers-Bears) will compete with the College Football Playoff first round, in a how-dare-you flex by the NFL carrying over from last year.
• Thursday, Dec. 25: Three Christmas games, including two on Netflix, like last year, plus the usual Thursday night Amazon game, featuring the Chiefs, who are trying to claim Christmas as their day in the same way the Lions and Cowboys claim Thanksgiving.

The throughput? None of these massively anticipated, seismically strategic games are on the NFL’s most traditional days of Sunday and Monday. Like today’s schedule release day itself, the NFL wants to dominate the full calendar.

Get Caught Up

ESPN launching … ESPN? Plus, the Mavericks’ unbelievable fortune

Big talkers from the sports business industry:

• Highlights from “upfronts” week: This week, all the big networks are giving presentations in front of the advertising industry (and media), trying to get marketers to spend their sponsorship money. Because it all happens before the start of the major sports seasons in the fall, the event is dubbed “upfronts.”The buzziest reveal? Michael Jordan will contribute to NBC’s NBA coverage this fall, doubling down on 1990s nostalgia.The one to watch: ESPN formally announced its direct-to-consumer streaming service, branded “ESPN.” The eponymous product will cost around $30 per month and require no other cable or streaming subscriptions to access live games and shows across the ESPN ecosystem.The presumptive market: People who don’t want to subscribe to cable or wider streamers like YouTubeTV, Fubo or Hulu Plus Live and who don’t mind building their own live sports “bundle” by subscribing to each major sports-focused streaming platform a la carte.
• WNBA season opens Friday: Dove into the state of the league in last week’s MoneyCall, but I think the overarching Big Question is not “can” the league build on last year’s momentum, but “by how much” will the league top it? Expectations are shifting dramatically — not just a good thing, but also a pretty significant factor leading up to the league’s labor negotiations with players later this fall. (Also: Our team’s season predictions? Yes, please.)
• Dallas Mavericks’ windfall: Fair or not, deserved or not, the Mavs’ lucky ping-pong ball result in the NBA Draft Lottery on Monday means they get the business grand slam of drafting Cooper Flagg:

 Surge in national TV games: Mavs-Lakers on Xmas Day?

 Season ticket sales/renewals: Luka who?

 Sponsorship sales: Who’s calling New Balance and AT&T?

 Jersey sales: I predict Flagg will lead the league.

Other current obsessions: TNT’s French Open “Rouge Zone” coverage … Women’s World Cup expanding to 48 teams in 2031 (matching the men in 2026) … Lilly Singh: Toronto Tempo “Chief Hype Officer” … Old-is-new U.S. Soccer kits … Potential contenders to buy the Portland Trailblazers … and, of course, the newly breaking Pete Rose posthumous reinstatement to baseball situation …

What I’m Wondering

What happens when the pope backs your team?

Pope Leo XIV being a sports fan — Chicago White Sox, Villanova basketball, tennis — has sparked a small frenzy of attention and opportunity.

Topps’ special release of a pope card shattered records; BreakingT’s “Daaa Pope” T-shirt sales have been “brisk,” per a company source; and, of course, there’s been an impact on sports gambling.

Arguably the biggest windfall goes to the Sox, which leaves me wondering: How does a team and its ecosystem of merchants even begin to navigate this kind of unexpected situation? 

My colleague Jon Greenberg has been looking into it — here is his reporting, and here is a key snippet, quoting the owner of a South Side store that specializes in Sox merch, now selling Pope Leo “14” jerseys, which are out-selling player jerseys for them:

 “You know, it’s one of those things where we have a business that allows us to customize a jersey and put a name and number on it. So why not? Think about it, there’s what, over a billion followers in that faith, right? So people want a feel-good story and people want to be the first to do everything. It really wasn’t my idea. I cannot take credit for it. I was just inspired, let’s put it that way.”

Read the whole thing here.

Grab Bag

Data Point: 38,423
The number of fans in Denver who came out last Saturday night to watch the Colorado Rockies get pummeled 21-0 by the San Diego Padres. Despite fielding a team this season that will challenge for Worst Team Ever, the Rockies are squarely in the middle of MLB attendance rankings.

That is a testament to the incredible experience at Coors Field, best described by my colleague Cody Stavenhagen this way: “If Wrigley Field exists as a timeless neighborhood bar, Coors Field thrives as a tranquil biergarten.” Will fans keep coming out despite the losing product?

Quote of the Week
“She doesn’t have anything to do with UNC football.” — Bill Belichick, on girlfriend Jordon Hudson, in an interview at an ACC event. Certainly less inflammatory than Hudson’s original “We’re not talking about that.”

Related: Hudson competed in Miss Maine USA last weekend and finished “second runner-up” (that’s third place, for non-pageant normies). My colleague Steve Buckley was on the scene.

What to Watch: ‘Welcome to Wrexham’
Premiering this week, Season 4 extends the most dramatic made-for-TV sports spectacle in the world — not-so-spoiler alert! — with Wrexham’s third straight season ending in promotion. My colleague Richard Sutcliffe has the most essential review you’ll find anywhere.

This Week in Branding
U.K. women’s pro soccer organizing corporation “Women’s Professional Leagues Limited” is now “Women’s Super League Football,” a vast improvement. But the league needs more than spangle, says my colleague Megan Feringa.

Plus! Only because it juuust missed our send time last Wednesday: Utah picks “Mammoth”: From name to logo to catchphrase (“Tusks up!”), phenomenal choices. Dan’s branding grade: A-.

Beat Dan in Connections
Couldn’t even finish this week. This is YOUR WEEK to top me! Play here.

Worth Your Time

Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:

“The double standards are real. The bias is real. But accountability matters, too. And invoking a real stereotype to excuse behavior cheapens the experience for those of us who must carry that stereotype with us every day, in spaces that won’t give us the benefit of the doubt.” — my colleague Claudio Cabrera, in a must-read essay on Draymond Green and the Warriors star’s rant on the “angry Black man” trope last week.

Three more reads worth your time: Understanding the Glazers. Our multi-part series on the pioneering, oft-frustrating Manchester United ownership of the Glazer family.

Back next Wednesday! This week’s challenge: Forward this to three friends or colleagues with your rec to sign up. (And signing up is totally free, as are all The Athletic’s other newsletters, too.)

(Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)

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