The NFL will open the season on a Wednesday night for the second time ever with the defending champion Seattle Seahawks set to host the first game of the 2026 season.
The NFL announced on Wednesday that the Seahawks will play the traditional opener as Super Bowl champions on Sept. 9, a day earlier than usual with the league also having a Week 1 game in Australia between the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams.
The opponent for Seattle on the game that will be broadcast on NBC will be determined later with a possibility of a Super Bowl rematch against New England, as well as matchups against either Chicago, Kansas City, Dallas or the Los Angeles Chargers.
The only other time the first game of the NFL season was played on a Wednesday came in 2012 when the Dallas Cowboys visited the New York Giants. The game was moved from its usual Thursday spot that year because President Barack Obama was set to speak that night at the Democratic National Convention.
The Rams and 49ers will play their opener on Sept. 11 in Melbourne. The game is expected to kick off at about 10:35 a.m. that Friday in Australia, which is 8:35 p.m. ET on Thursday night in the United States. The broadcaster for that game has not been determined yet.
The NFL had played Week 1 games in Brazil the past two seasons on the first Friday night in September. With Labor Day being later this year, the opening Friday for the 2026 season is the second one in September, making the NFL unable to play games that night on television because of the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.
While Wednesday games were played occasionally in the early years of the NFL, this will be just the fifth since 1950. There were two games on Christmas Day when it fell on a Wednesday in 2024, one in 2022 that was delayed because of COVID-19 and the 2012 opener.
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