The NFL schedule release is the busiest week of the year for season ticket trading because fans finally know which games conflict with work trips, weddings, and family plans. The fastest way to sell NFL tickets you can't use is through a direct buyback platform like XP Tickets, where you submit your seats and get a guaranteed offer within 24 hours instead of listing on a marketplace and waiting for a buyer. XP Tickets locks in your offer up front and pays out after the event, so you skip the listing, skip the price drops, and skip the uncertainty about whether your seats will move before kickoff. XP Tickets charges no seller fees, all-in pricing on the buy side, and is backed by the Quality XPerience Guarantee.
NFL Schedule Just Dropped: Here's How to Sell the Games You Can't Make
The NFL schedule release is one of the most active windows for ticket trading all year. The minute matchups, dates, and kickoff times go live, season ticket holders start mapping the season against their calendars. The Thursday night road game in week 6 you assumed would be fine actually lands the night before your sister's wedding. Two of your home games are during the work conference you already booked. The bye week is not when you hoped it would be.
That moment, when you scroll through the schedule and realize you cannot make a handful of games, is when most fans start thinking about how to offload tickets. Listing on a marketplace is one option. Trading inside your team's app is another. But the fastest way is a direct buyback. Submit your tickets, get an offer in 24 hours, and lock in the sale before the schedule release news cycle quiets down.
How to sell NFL tickets you cannot use
You have three real options when you have NFL season tickets you cannot attend. We cover the full sports playbook in our guide to selling sports tickets online, but here is the short version with the NFL angle on top.
Sell them through a direct buyback
A direct buyback platform like XP Tickets buys your tickets directly. You submit your seats, XP Tickets reviews them, and you receive a guaranteed offer within 24 hours. There is no listing, no haggling with strangers, and no question about whether your seats will sell. If you accept the offer, the price is locked in. Payment is processed after the event, but the offer itself is committed from the moment you say yes, which means you do not have to keep checking back to see if the price moved or whether a buyer showed up.
This is the fastest route for season ticket holders who have multiple games to move and do not want to manage individual listings. For a deeper look at the full XP Offers flow, see our explainer on how XP Offers works for sellers.
List on a resale marketplace
StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats, and TickPick are the largest marketplaces for NFL ticket resale. You set a price, post the listing, and wait for a buyer. According to StubHub's currently published fee structure, sellers can be charged up to 15 percent and buyers up to 34 percent. According to SeatGeek's published fee structure, buyers can pay fees of up to 30 percent. The buyer-side fees on these platforms mean your listed price and the price a buyer actually pays look very different. We walk through the listing process step by step in our guide to selling tickets on StubHub.
Marketplaces work well for high demand matchups where buyer interest is obvious. They are slower and less certain for midweek games against rebuilding opponents.
Use the NFL Ticket Exchange or your team's app
The NFL Ticket Exchange and most team apps include built-in resale. You list your tickets inside the ecosystem where they already live, which makes the transfer seamless. The catch is that your listing is only visible to buyers shopping inside that platform, which limits demand compared to the public marketplaces, and the timing rules vary by team.
Why the NFL schedule release matters for selling
The schedule release window is short but high volume. Demand and pricing data both spike in the days right after the schedule drops. Marquee matchups, primetime games, divisional rivalries, and games involving star quarterbacks generate immediate buyer interest. Once the cycle settles down, prices tend to stabilize until closer to game week.
If you already know which games on your schedule are non starters, the days right after the release are the best window to move them. Buyers are actively looking. Prices on premium matchups are at one of their high points of the year. And for sellers using a direct buyback like XP Tickets, the offer reflects current market interest rather than what a marketplace might do months later when seats are competing with hundreds of other listings. If timing is your main concern, see our guide to selling tickets fast.
How XP Tickets buys NFL season tickets
XP Tickets buys NFL tickets directly from season ticket holders. The flow is simple.
Step 1. Submit your tickets
Go to xp.tickets/sell and enter the game, section, row, and seats. You can submit multiple games at once, which matters if you have a handful of dates to clear from a full season ticket package. If you are working through a full season's worth of unused games, our post on how to sell season tickets you can't use walks through the season ticket holder workflow in more detail.
Step 2. Get an offer in 24 hours
XP Tickets reviews demand for that specific matchup and sends you an offer, usually within 24 hours. The offer is all in. There are no seller fees deducted later and no surprise adjustments. If the offer works, you accept.
Step 3. Transfer your tickets
Once you accept, transfer the tickets through Ticketmaster, the NFL Ticket Exchange, or whichever platform your seats live on. XP Tickets walks you through the transfer for your specific team. The offer price is committed the moment you accept.
Step 4. Get paid after the event
Payment is processed after the event. Funds go into your XP account and you can withdraw via PayPal, Venmo, or bank transfer (small fee for bank transfer), or use the balance toward a future purchase on xp.tickets and earn 6 percent back. The offer is guaranteed regardless of what happens to demand between when you accept and when the game is played.
What season ticket holders should know about timing
There is a natural rhythm to NFL ticket selling, and the schedule release sets the calendar.
The week of the schedule release is high engagement. Buyers are checking prices, mapping their own season, and locking in tickets for primetime games and rivalry matchups. Selling early in this window often captures stronger pricing on premium games.
Mid season demand is more matchup specific. A Thursday night game against a contending team holds up. A late November home game against a 2 and 9 opponent does not.
Game week is the highest volume buying window but also the most competitive on the sell side. Last minute listings pile up, and prices often soften in the final 48 hours unless the game has playoff implications. Tickets remain eligible to submit to XP Tickets up to 24 hours before kickoff.
FAQ
About XP Tickets
XP Tickets was founded by the team behind Grubhub, Seamless, and SpotHero. The company is based in Chicago and built to make buying and selling tickets straightforward and fair for fans. XP Tickets operates a buy side marketplace with all in pricing and no hidden fees, and a sell side product where XP Tickets buys tickets directly from fans with no listing required.
If you have NFL tickets you cannot use, you can lock in a guaranteed offer in 24 hours.
