NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will seemingly remain a fixture of league operations for several more years.
NFL team owners are expected to complete a contract extension with Goodell, 68, to keep him on as commissioner through the next collective bargaining negotiations with players and the next set of broadcasting deals with media companies, according to a report by Mark Maske in Front Office Sports. Goodell last signed a a three-year extension in October 2023 that expires in March 2027.
The new extension comes at a key time for the NFL as the league looks to navigate labor negotiations with the players that will center on adding an 18th game to the season. The current collective bargaining agreement with the NFLPA expires following the 2030 season, but owners have long desired to add the extra game before then, which would necessitate a new or amended agreement with the players.
The NFL is also in the midst of angling for new broadcast deals several years before its opt-out options with current TV partners hit at the end of the decade. Many analysts expect these deals to be struck within the next year or so, securing a significant revenue increase for the NFL in exchange for extending the deals out until the mid-2030s.
In May 2025, a report in The Athletic indicated that owners were set to approve an extension for Goodell imminently, but that extension never happened. Maske reports that there do not appear to be “any major stumbling blocks in the negotiations between the owners and Goodell.”
NFL owners are expected to meet in August to ratify the proposed sale of the Seattle Seahawks and then again in October for their regularly scheduled quarterly meeting. It’s unclear exactly when a formal extension with Goodell could be reached, though the last time around the commissioner was extended during the October meeting.