Is The Preseason Dying a Slow Death?

When was the last time you circled a preseason game on your calendar? Exactly.

The real football in August is happening in Owings Mills and Eagan, not under the stadium lights. The Ravens will practice twice with the Vikings at TCO Performance Center on August 19-20 before the August 22 preseason game at U.S. Bank Stadium, then host the Commanders for a joint practice at the Under Armour Performance Center on August 26 ahead of the preseason finale on August 28 at M&T Bank Stadium. And here’s the tell: many NFL teams are reluctant to play their starters during preseason games, making joint practices their only opportunity for reps against opponents before Week 1.

Coaches have been saying the quiet part out loud for years. Kyle Shanahan went as far as to say he could glean more information on his players from a joint practice than from a preseason game, saying he’d place “a ton more value” on the joint session. So, could the league eventually swap exhibition games for organized scrimmages? The idea isn’t new — back when the current CBA was being negotiated, Bears quarterback and NFLPA rep Chase Daniel predicted the league would transition toward joint practices and not playing in the games.

But “cancel the preseason and just practice” isn’t where the owners’ heads are. Their play is conversion, not cancellation. How can they recoup and perhaps expand upon the dollars lost should preseason games go the way of the dinosaurs? After all, larceny grips the collective soul of the league’s owners.

Roger Goodell said it plainly on The Pat McAfee Show during the 2024 NFL Draft: “I’d rather replace a preseason game with a regular-season game any day, that’s just picking quality. If we got to 18 and two, that’s not an unreasonable thing.”

Robert Kraft took the sentiment a step further this past winter: “Every team will go to 18 regular season games and two preseason games and eliminate one of the preseason games, and every team, every year will play one game overseas.”

Let’s pump the brakes slightly — Goodell said at his Super Bowl press conference that expanding to 18 games is “not a given,” that there had been no formal discussions, and that it’s something the league wants to talk about with union leadership. And the NFLPA’s leadership has said players have no appetite for an 18th game. This gets settled at a bargaining table, not a podium.

Show Me The Money!

Would ownership actually miss preseason gate revenue? Less than you’d think, and here’s why: they’ve already insured themselves against it. If you hold PSLs, you know the drill — season ticket packages bundle the preseason games in, and you pay whether Lamar plays a snap or not. Look at the one team that opens its books: the Packers price preseason tickets at roughly half of regular-season prices — $109 for preseason versus $218 for the best seats in 2026 — and that preseason game is baked into a season ticket package. The concessions, the parking, the beer — a home date is a home date, and one preseason home game at a full building is still millions in gross ticket revenue before you touch the ancillary spending. That’s real money. But it’s exhibition-priced money.

Here’s the accounting that makes owners drool: swap that half-price exhibition for a real game and you don’t need to “recapture” anything — you’ve doubled the ticket, kept the same building, lowered operating expenses, and created broadcast inventory you can actually sell. The move from 16 to 17 games increased the sellable inventory from 256 games to 272; an 18th game pushes it to 288, and eliminating the preseason entirely would push it to 320 games that could be sold to networks and streamers. Preseason games have no national TV value to speak of. Regular-season windows are the most valuable programming in America.

How Might This Affect Season Ticket Prices?

The answer to this question would be heavily laced with speculation. So I won’t insult your intelligence. What I can tell you is what history says: when the league went from two preseason home games to a 17-game format, teams simply restructured season ticket packages — Green Bay’s “Gold package” holders, for example, now receive two regular-season games plus the home preseason game as their allotment, and pricing marches upward a few bucks a year regardless. If your team trades a preseason home date for a ninth regular-season home game, your invoice goes up, not down — you’re now paying full freight for a game that used to cost half. The owners don’t need to sneak lost preseason revenue into your regular-season prices. The conversion itself is the price increase.

And the joint practices? Those quietly become a fan product too. The Vikings have already said ticketing details for the Ravens joint practices will be announced later — teams are learning that fans will show up to watch Lamar versus Flores’ defense on a Wednesday in August. Don’t be shocked if, five years from now, “joint practice weekend” is a monetized event with sponsors and streaming cameras, sitting where preseason Week 1 used to be.

Bottom line: the preseason won’t be canceled outright and replaced by practices — the CBA runs through 2030, the union has to sign off on any schedule change, and Goodell himself is doing his usual backstroke in his typically disingenuous style. But the direction of travel is unmistakable. Fewer fake games, more real ones, more joint practices doing the actual football work, and your wallet — as always — picking up any revenue slack.

But that’s just my two cents.

What about yours?

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Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2026/08/18/lombardis-way/preseason-games/