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Best Time to Buy NFL Tickets in 2026: What 211 Games of Price Tracking Show

Best Time to Buy NFL Tickets in 2026: What 211 Games of Price Tracking Show

by TicketScanner Team

Check today’s get-in prices and price history for the NFL games TicketScanner tracks on TicketScanner’s NFL page.

Key Takeaways

  • Waiting through the preseason did not pay. The median get-in price for the 211 upcoming 2026 regular-season games TicketScanner tracks rose from $110 on Aug. 3 to $118 on Sept. 13, and 46% of those games rose more than 10%, according to TicketScanner’s daily price tracking.
  • Week 1 turned at the end. Across 13 tracked Week 1 games, the median get-in peaked at $203 one to four weeks before kickoff, then fell to $128 on game day. Of those games, 69% fell more than 10% and none rose more than 10%. It is a small sample.
  • High-demand games held. The season opener slipped from $281 to $265 and Cowboys at Giants on Sunday Night Football from $243 to $237, while the three biggest drops were all Sunday 1 p.m. games.
  • Our read so far: buy prime-time, rivalry and holiday games when the price fits your budget. For an ordinary Sunday 1 p.m. game, Week 1 suggests skipping the one-to-four-week window and watching the final three days.

Best time to buy NFL tickets: the short answer

Based on 2026 data so far, buy early or in the final few days, not in between. The median get-in for 211 upcoming games rose from $110 on Aug. 3 to $118 on Sept. 13, per TicketScanner’s daily price tracking. In Week 1, most games then fell in the final week, from $203 to $128, except high-demand games.

Every TicketScanner price here is a get-in price: the cheapest listed ticket for a game across the resale marketplaces TicketScanner monitors, before fees.

Do NFL tickets get cheaper closer to the game?

Not in the run-up to the season. TicketScanner compared the same 211 upcoming regular-season games on two dates.

Same 211 upcoming games Result
Median get-in, Aug. 3, 2026 $110
Median get-in, Sept. 13, 2026 $118 (about +7%)
Games that rose more than 10% 46%
Games within 10% either way 41%
Games that fell more than 10% 13%
Median change per game +9%

Source: TicketScanner daily price tracking, the 211 upcoming 2026 regular-season games with a set date that TicketScanner tracks, Aug. 3 vs. Sept. 13, 2026. Before fees.

For every game that got more than 10% cheaper over those six weeks, about 3.5 got more than 10% pricier. The median game rose 9%, so at least half of the 211 games cost more on Sept. 13 than on Aug. 3. As the season approached and started, the typical future game got more expensive, not cheaper.

How far out you buy: prices by days before the game

Days before game Games Median get-in 25th percentile 75th percentile
151+ days 53 $112 $55 $178
121-150 days 115 $102 $57 $179
91-120 days 167 $110 $64 $189
61-90 days 160 $113 $73 $205
31-60 days 109 $120 $80 $207
4-30 days 57 $118 $81 $190

Source: TicketScanner daily price tracking, upcoming 2026 regular-season games, tracking data from early August 2026 onward for most games. Each game’s median within the window, then the median across games.

The median stayed between $102 and $120 from five months out to the final month, with no sign that buying months early costs extra. The bigger shift was at the cheap end, where the 25th percentile climbed from $55 to $81.

Each row holds different games, though: the four-to-30-day row can only include games played by mid-October, while the farthest rows lean on late-season games. That mix may explain part of the rise, so the same-game comparison above is the better test of direction.

What Week 1 showed: the drop came in the final week

Across the 13 Week 1 games TicketScanner tracked that were played Sept. 9-13 (three of the 16 Week 1 games are not included, among them Monday night’s Broncos at Chiefs), the median get-in went from $170 at 60+ days out to $203 at both 15-30 and eight to 14 days out. It then fell to $172 at four to seven days, $140 at one to three days and $128 on game day.

Of those 13 games, 69% fell more than 10% between 15-30 days out and game day or the day before, and none rose more than 10%. The three steepest drops were all Sunday 1 p.m. kickoffs, led by Falcons at Steelers ($161 to $66).

Four of the 13 games stayed within 10%, including both night games and Commanders at Eagles, a 4:25 p.m. division game ($203 to $195). The opener, a Wednesday night Super Bowl LX rematch with the defending champion Seahawks hosting the Patriots, went from $281 to $265. Cowboys at Giants on Sunday Night Football went from $243 to $237.

One week and 13 games is an early signal, not a rule. For the curve next to MLB and MLS, see do tickets get cheaper closer to the game.

When to buy NFL tickets: rules by game type

In Week 1, prices peaked a few weeks before kickoff and fell in the last days, except for high-demand games.

Ordinary Sunday 1 p.m. games

These had the lowest median get-in price in the Sept. 13 snapshot. A Sunday 1 p.m. game had a $95 median get-in, against about $156 to $158 for the late-afternoon and Sunday and Monday night windows, in TicketScanner’s Sept. 13, 2026 snapshot (full table in how much NFL tickets cost).

  • If the game is months away and the price looks fair, buying now is reasonable. At least half the tracked games cost more in mid-September than in early August.
  • Be wary of buying eight to 30 days out. In Week 1, that was the peak ($203), though one week is not a rule.
  • If you can stay flexible, watch the last three days, when the Week 1 median fell to $140 and then $128 on game day.
  • The home team matters too; see our team-by-team NFL ranking.

Prime-time, rivalry and holiday games

Do not count on a late drop. In Week 1 the opener gave back 6%, Commanders at Eagles 4% and the Sunday night game 2%, while the steepest 1 p.m. drop was 59%.

Holiday games likely draw the same kind of demand (our reasoning, not measured data). Thanksgiving is Thursday, Nov. 26 (Bears at Lions, Eagles at Cowboys, Chiefs at Bills), and Christmas Day falls on a Friday (Packers at Bears, Bills at Broncos, Rams at Seahawks). Team pricing points the same way: a 2023 Management Science study found that after NFL teams switched to variable pricing, minimum resale prices rose for the more attractive games.

Set a price you will pay and buy when the get-in reaches it; far-out prices were flat, so buying early costs little.

Late-season games: playoff stakes and cold weather

TicketScanner has no completed late-season games to measure yet, so this part leans on outside sources.

Under the NFL’s 2026 flexible scheduling procedures, Sunday Night Football can be flexed up to twice in Weeks 5-10 and in any week from Week 11 to Week 17, and Week 18 dates and kickoff times are not set until Week 17 ends. A 1 p.m. game with playoff stakes can become a prime-time game on short notice.

Weather pulls the other way. Before the January 2024 Dolphins-Chiefs wild-card game in Kansas City, with a forecast low of eight degrees below zero, CBS Sports found upper-level seats on StubHub for $50 apiece for a pair.

Our reading, not measured data: if your team is in the race, buy before the stakes are obvious. If neither team is contending and the game is outdoors with a bad forecast, waiting has its best odds.

When not to wait

  • The game is the reason for the trip. Marquee Week 1 games barely dropped.
  • The stadium is likely to sell out. NFL games filled 97.6% of stadium capacity in 2025, according to SportsPro; more in why NFL tickets are so expensive.
  • You need seats together. The get-in is the single cheapest ticket and late in a game’s run can be a lone seat (our reasoning, not measured data).
  • A marketplace warns against it. TickPick’s game-day guide calls NFL game-day prices “risky,” saying they “often go up, especially for key matchups or limited seating.”

What other price studies say

Several outside analyses have found lower resale prices in the final days for some ordinary games.

  • FinanceBuzz, analyzing more than 900,000 NFL resale tickets from an earlier regular season with seatdata.io data (its page was last updated in September 2025), found tickets sold three days out were 13% cheaper than average and game-day tickets 12% cheaper, while tickets bought more than two months out cost 3% more. Only 2% of the resale tickets in its data sold on game day.
  • CBS News reported in 2022 on an earlier FinanceBuzz analysis of 1.6 million transactions: buying on game day was typically 29% cheaper than buying ahead of time. The average third-party price was $167 in the first week of the 2021 season and $236 three months later.
  • TickPick recommends three to seven days before an NFL game. Ticketmaster’s NFL guide says prices do not always fall as the game approaches.

TicketScanner’s Week 1 data also showed a last-days drop. The difference is method: these studies measure prices of tickets that actually sold, while TicketScanner tracks the cheapest listing before fees, the price a budget buyer starts from.

How TicketScanner measured this

TicketScanner records each tracked game’s get-in price daily, around 9 a.m. ET, in U.S. dollars and before fees.

The same-game comparison covers the 211 upcoming 2026 regular-season games with a set date that TicketScanner tracks, priced on Aug. 3 and Sept. 13, 2026. In the days-before table, counts differ by window because tracking began in early August for most games. In Week 1, a game “fell” or “rose” if its get-in on game day or the day before was more than 10% below or above its 15-30 day median.

TicketScanner tracks a subset of each league’s games, not every game. No Los Angeles Chargers home games are tracked, and “Date TBD” and preseason games are excluded from the 211. Results describe the tracked games, and prices move daily.

FAQ

When is the cheapest time to buy NFL tickets?

For an ordinary regular-season game, the last few days, based on Week 1 so far. In Week 1 of 2026, the median get-in for 13 tracked games fell from $203 one to four weeks out to $128 on game day, per TicketScanner’s daily price tracking. High-demand games such as the opener barely dropped.

Are NFL tickets cheaper on game day?

Often, for ordinary games. Game day was the cheapest window for the Week 1 games TicketScanner tracked, and FinanceBuzz found game-day resale tickets 12% cheaper than average. TickPick warns that game-day prices can rise for key matchups.

How far in advance should you buy NFL tickets?

Early, or in the final days, based on 2026 data so far. For the same 211 upcoming games TicketScanner tracks, the median get-in was $110 on Aug. 3 and $118 on Sept. 13. Week 1 prices peaked one to four weeks before kickoff, though that is one week of games.

Do NFL ticket prices go up during the season?

For future games, they have in 2026 so far: 46% of the 211 tracked upcoming games rose more than 10% between Aug. 3 and Sept. 13, and 13% fell more than 10%.

When do NFL tickets go on sale?

The 2026 schedule was released May 14, 2026, and tickets are on sale, according to Ticketmaster. On-sale timing is covered in our guide to when NFL tickets go on sale.

Before you buy, check the get-in price history for tracked NFL games on TicketScanner’s NFL page.

Sources

  • https://financebuzz.com/when-to-buy-nfl-tickets (more than 900,000 NFL resale tickets from the previous regular season at the time of analysis, seatdata.io data, page updated Sept. 8, 2025: 13% cheaper than average three days before, 12% cheaper on game day, 3% more than average more than two months out; only 2% of resale tickets sold on game days)
  • https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nfl-tickets-best-time-to-buy/ (CBS News, Sept. 9, 2022: FinanceBuzz analysis of 1.6 million transactions, game day typically 29% cheaper; 2021 average third-party price $167 in the first week of the season, $236 three months later)
  • https://www.tickpick.com/blog/do-ticket-prices-drop-the-day-of-the-game/ (TickPick, April 9, 2026: NFL best time to buy 3-7 days before; game-day prices “risky,” “often go up, especially for key matchups or limited seating”)
  • https://blog.ticketmaster.com/nfl-tickets/ (prices do not always go down as the event approaches; 2026 schedule revealed May 14, 2026, and tickets are on sale)
  • https://www.nfl.com/schedules/2026/by-week/week-1 (16 Week 1 games; Falcons at Steelers, Browns at Jaguars, Bears at Panthers, Commanders at Eagles and Cowboys at Giants on Sept. 13; Broncos at Chiefs on Monday, Sept. 14)
  • https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/when-does-2026-nfl-season-start-complete-week-1-schedule (Wed. Sept. 9 opener, defending champion Seahawks host the Patriots in a Super Bowl LX rematch; Falcons at Steelers, Browns at Jaguars and Bears at Panthers at 1 p.m. ET; Commanders at Eagles 4:25 p.m. ET; Cowboys at Giants 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC)
  • https://www.nfl.com/legal/flexible-scheduling-procedures (2026 procedures: Sunday Night Football flex up to twice in Weeks 5-10 and any week in Weeks 11-17; Week 18 schedule announced at the conclusion of Week 17)
  • https://www.nfl.com/schedules/2026/by-week/week-18 (Week 18 dates, start times and networks to be announced after Week 17)
  • https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/2026-nfl-thanksgiving-games-schedule-teams-how-watch (Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2026: Bears at Lions, Eagles at Cowboys, Chiefs at Bills)
  • https://www.nfl.com/news/christmas-netflix-2026-nfl-schedule-release (Christmas Day 2026: Packers at Bears, Bills at Broncos, Rams at Seahawks)
  • https://www.colorado.edu/business/faculty-research/2023/08/05/scoring-touchdown-variable-pricing-evidence-quasi-experiment-nfl-ticket-markets (Arslan, Tereyağoğlu and Yılmaz, Management Science, 2023: minimum resale prices increase for the more attractive NFL games after the switch to variable pricing)
  • https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/chiefs-vs-dolphins-wild-card-games-ticket-prices-plummet-due-to-freezing-temperatures (CBS Sports, Jan. 12, 2024: upper-level seats $50 apiece for a pair on StubHub; forecast low of eight degrees below zero for the Dolphins-Chiefs wild-card game)
  • https://www.sportspro.com/features/finance-investment/nfl-2025-season-review-tv-viewership-sponsorship-revenue-attendance-valuations-data/ (97.6% of total capacity occupied in the 2025 NFL season)

About TicketScanner

TicketScanner is an independent ticket price comparison platform built to help fans find the cheapest tickets available online. We aggregate publicly available ticket listing data from multiple marketplaces and present it in a structured, easy-to-compare format.

TicketScanner does not sell tickets and does not process payments. Instead, we provide pricing insights and redirect users to third-party marketplaces where transactions are completed.