--- title: Donald Trump: Presidential Debates Overlap With NFL Games description: The Commission on Presidential Debates suggested it likely will not reschedule the debates that fall on the same night as NFL games. canonical: https://time.com/4432365/donald-trump-nfl-debate-schedule/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-31T18:23:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:48.605Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Complains About Debates Overlapping With NFL Games og:description: But officials said the dates won't change og:url: https://time.com/4432365/donald-trump-nfl-debate-schedule/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt721f9d89152a5334/6988a08a5f570f4d84b22067/donald-trump-nfl-debates.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Republican Presidential Candidates Address 2015 Family Leadership Summit og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Complains About Debates Overlapping With NFL Games twitter:description: But officials said the dates won't change twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt721f9d89152a5334/6988a08a5f570f4d84b22067/donald-trump-nfl-debates.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Complains About Debates Overlapping With NFL Games, But the Dates Won’t Change > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Jul 31, 2016 6:23 PM UTC  Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump fields questions at The Family Leadership Summit at Stephens Auditorium on July 18, 2015 in Ames, Iowa. Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump fields questions at The Family Leadership Summit at Stephens Auditorium on July 18, 2015 in Ames, Iowa.Scott Olson—Getty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Jul 31, 2016 6:23 PM UTC The Commission on Presidential Debates on Sunday suggested it [likely will not reschedule the debates](http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/31/media/donald-trump-jason-miller-reliable-sources/) that fall on the same night as NFL games despite [Donald Trump](http://time.com/4432219/donald-trump-father-soldier-khizr-khan/?xid=homepage) complaining about the timing. The GOP presidential nominee earlier this week griped about [two upcoming debates](http://www.debates.org/) against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton that are scheduled at the same time as football games. “I’ll tell you what I don’t like,” Trump said in an interview with [ABC News](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-complains-debates-conflicting-nfl-games/story?id=41026741) on Sunday. “It’s against two NFL games. I got a letter from the NFL saying, ‘This is ridiculous.’ I don’t think we should be against the NFL. I don’t know how the dates are picked.” An NFL spokesman said in a statement that the football league did not write a letter, but “we obviously prefer the debates on a different night than scheduled games,” according to ABC. The non-partisan debates commission said in a statement to CNNMoney that it’s “impossible to avoid all sporting events,” adding that a debate has never been rescheduled because it overlapped with a game. “The \[commission\] started working more than 18 months ago to identify religious and federal holidays, baseball league playoff games, NFL games, and other events in order to select the best nights for the 2016 debates,” the statement said. “The CPD selects the debate dates a year in advance in order for the television networks to have maximum lead time and predictability in scheduling these extremely important civic education forums. The CPD believes the dates for the 2016 debates will serve the American public well,” it continued. The first presidential debate will take place on Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. The second debate is set for Oct. 9 in St. Louis and the third on Oct. 19 in Las Vegas. Jason Miller, senior communications adviser with the Trump campaign, told CNN’s _Reliable Sources_ on Sunday that the first two debates go head-to-head with big NFL games. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4432365/donald-trump-nfl-debate-schedule/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4432365/donald-trump-nfl-debate-schedule/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Complains About Debates Overlapping With NFL Games, But the Dates Won’t Change","datePublished":"2016-07-31T18:23:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:45:48.605Z","description":"Trump doesn't \"like\" that two upcoming debates go up against NFL games","url":"https://time.com/4432365/donald-trump-nfl-debate-schedule/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt721f9d89152a5334/6988a08a5f570f4d84b22067/donald-trump-nfl-debates.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt721f9d89152a5334/6988a08a5f570f4d84b22067/donald-trump-nfl-debates.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Republican Presidential Candidates Address 2015 Family Leadership Summit","caption":"Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump fields questions at The Family Leadership Summit at Stephens Auditorium on July 18, 2015 in Ames, Iowa.","creditText":"Scott Olson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4432365/donald-trump-nfl-debate-schedule/","name":"Donald Trump Complains About Debates Overlapping With NFL Games, But the Dates Won’t Change"}}]}] ```