Big event · September 9, 2026
Lumen Field · Seattle, WA
The Patriots visit the defending-champion Seahawks on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, a Super Bowl LX rematch and the NFL's first Wednesday opener since 2012, stacking opening-night demand on top of Seattle's busiest midweek business-travel nights.
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The 2026 NFL Kickoff Game is over. Seattle beat New England 13-10 at Lumen Field on Wednesday, September 9, after raising the Super Bowl LX banner over the team it beat for it. Sam Darnold left with a hip injury on the sixth play and Drew Lock finished the win. Nothing about this game is bookable now. The 2027 opener belongs to whoever wins Super Bowl LXI on February 14, 2027 at SoFi Stadium, so next year's host city is genuinely unknowable until then. At Lumen Field the next date is the Bears on Monday night, November 2 at 5:15 p.m. Pacific, 8:15 p.m. Eastern. Seattle beat the Chargers 30-23 there on October 4, lost 32-29 to the 49ers on October 11, and beat the Chiefs 20-3 on October 25. Checked October 8 on GSA's rate lookup: the federal lodging benchmark for Seattle runs $255 a night from June through October and $188 from November, so the Bears date is the first home game on the cheaper side of that line.
Live rates and availability plotted around Lumen Field.
Top 3 rooms · our picks, never paid placements
Premium
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Two-room suites across King Street from Lumen's north side, with made-to-order breakfast and an evening reception. For a 5:20 local kickoff you leave the lobby at 4 and you are still early.
checked Aug 14Check rates →
Fan pick
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The stadium hotel. Rooftop pool and hot tub open year-round, 0.2 miles to the gates, and you walk home at 8:45 on a work night instead of standing in a surge queue. Valet is $48 plus tax, which is the whole argument for skipping the rental car and riding Link in from Sea-Tac.
checked Aug 14Check rates →
Budget
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Cheapest bed we could find this close to the gates: dorm bunks and private rooms, eight minutes on foot to Lumen and a block from the International District/Chinatown light rail stop. Recent reviews keep flagging warm rooms and no air conditioning; check them before you book.
checked Aug 14Check rates →
It’s done. The Seahawks opened the 2026 season on Wednesday, September 9 by raising a Super Bowl LX banner over the team they beat for it, and then nearly lost the game to that team anyway.
New England led 10-3 going into the fourth quarter. Seattle scored ten unanswered points to take it: a 45-yard catch-and-run touchdown from Drew Lock to Jaxon Smith-Njigba to tie, then a 26-yard Jason Myers field goal for the lead. Drake Maye threw three interceptions, and the third landed in the Seattle end zone with 26 seconds on the clock.
The cost was Sam Darnold. He was sacked by Dre’Mont Jones on the sixth play of Seattle’s season, took a hip injury out of it, and was ruled out before halftime with one completion for 13 yards. Lock finished 16 of 22 for 187 yards. A.J. Brown left in the third quarter with an ankle injury. A banner night that read like a coronation in the pregame turned into a two-quarterback survival game by the fourth.
If you came here looking to book this game, you’re a day late and there’s nothing here to sell you. What’s below is what it cost, what we got wrong about it, and what actually happens next in this building.
This was the most expensive get-in of the sixteen Week 1 games, and the price still fell every week it got closer.
StubHub’s cheapest listing was $313 on August 10. By September 8 it was around $266, with the cheapest lower-level seat at $351 against $489 a month earlier. The average cheapest ticket across all sixteen openers was roughly $174, so Seattle stayed the premium game the whole way. It just got less premium.
In early September this page argued that a flat resale market would firm up in the final week, on the theory that a Super Bowl rematch on national television pulls late buyers in. It didn’t. The floor eased a few more percent and the lower bowl dropped about 28 percent from its August ask. We said it the other way and it’s worth writing down plainly, because the pattern underneath is the useful part: a marquee opener gets priced the day the schedule is announced, and the sellers still holding inventory in the final week are the ones who blink. On a game that has been on every calendar since May, waiting is a legitimate strategy. That’s the opposite of how a playoff game behaves.
On the hotel side, the headline is that Seattle never locked out. Rooms were live at every tier on opener night. What disappeared was the cheap rate, not the inventory, and that’s the normal shape of a game night in a city with downtown Seattle’s supply depth. It takes a game plus something else, a big convention or a heavy cruise weekend, to actually close the market.
The NFL opener goes to the defending champion at home. Super Bowl LXI is February 14, 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, and until that game is played there is no 2027 host city, no stadium and nothing to book. Seattle could host again. So could thirty-one other teams.
The date is the only piece with a shape to it. The opener is traditionally the Thursday after Labor Day, and Labor Day 2027 is September 6, which points at September 9. Hold that loosely: the league just ran a Wednesday opener for 2026, so the convention is a habit rather than a rule.
The practical version of all this: there is nothing to do about the 2027 opener until February. Rates in a contender’s city don’t move on speculation, and they don’t move much on a conference championship either. The window that matters opens the night the Super Bowl ends and the host city is finally a fact.
The building doesn’t go quiet. The Chargers came in on October 4 and lost 30-23, then the 49ers came in on October 11 and won 32-29, Seattle’s first home loss of the year. Then Kansas City came in on Sunday night, October 25 and lost 20-3, the Chiefs’ first defeat of the season in front of a prime-time crowd that had travelled for it. Next at Lumen Field is the Bears on Monday night, November 2, kicking at 5:15 p.m. Pacific. A night kickoff sells the night of the game itself, which a 1:25 Sunday never does, and the Monday version adds a cost the Sunday one doesn’t: nobody flies home after a 5:15 Monday game, so the trip eats Tuesday morning.
A note on clocks before the rest of the list, because this one costs people money. National listings put Lumen Field kickoffs in Eastern time, so the 5:15 p.m. Pacific Bears game shows up everywhere as 8:15. Pacific is what you book flights against. From the Seahawks’ own schedule page, checked October 25: Bears on Monday night, November 2 at 5:15 p.m. Pacific. Cardinals on Sunday, November 8 at 1:25 p.m. Cowboys on Monday night, December 7 at 5:15 p.m. Giants on Sunday, December 13 at 1:25 p.m. Rams on Christmas Day, Friday, December 25 at 5:15 p.m. Pacific, which is the 8:15 Eastern you’ll see quoted.
Two of those are different animals from the rest. The Christmas game competes with holiday travel rather than with football demand, which means downtown rates are set by people who aren’t going to the game at all and won’t soften as kickoff approaches. And the Sounders are still playing their own home schedule in the same stadium through the fall, so a Seattle stadium-district weekend isn’t automatically a football weekend. Check both calendars against your dates.
Worth knowing before you shop the October games. The federal government publishes a lodging per diem for every U.S. city, which is a decent neutral yardstick for what a normal night should cost, and Seattle’s just moved.
For the fiscal year that started October 1, 2026, the Seattle and King County lodging rate is $255 a night from June through October, and $188 from November through May. Re-checked October 8 on GSA’s own rate lookup, and it holds. The year before, the high band was $248 and it stopped at the end of September, with October sitting in the cheap $188 tier.
So October got reclassified as peak season in Seattle, and the peak number went up. The Chiefs game on October 25 was the last home date inside that $255 band. Then it falls off a cliff. The Bears game on Monday, November 2 is the first home date in the $188 band, and that $67 step down between two home games eight days apart is the only move the federal yardstick makes all season. It has nothing to do with the opponent and everything to do with a fiscal calendar. The usable version, for every Lumen Field date left in 2026: the government’s idea of a normal Seattle night is now $188, so a November or December quote sitting up near $255 is the game doing that to you, not the season.
The stadium sits on the southern edge of downtown rather than out in a suburb, which is the best structural thing about a trip here and doesn’t change from game to game.
Pioneer Square is first choice if anything’s left, about five minutes’ walk from the north gates, thin supply and priced for it. Downtown and the waterfront hold the actual inventory, 15 to 25 minutes on foot or one Link stop, and it’s where most visiting fans land. SoDo is closer and cheaper and dead after dark, and it takes both the football and baseball crowds when the Mariners are home. Belltown is a 30-minute walk for the best restaurant density. The airport corridor is genuinely viable because Link runs Sea-Tac to Stadium station directly, and it wins outright if you fly out the next morning.
For one night, a hotel almost always beats a rental, since a cleaning fee spread across a single night wrecks the math. That flips for groups of four or more or for a longer Pacific Northwest trip.
Ride Link. The 1 Line and 2 Line both reach Stadium station and International District/Chinatown station, roughly 40 minutes from the airport. Flat $3 for adults, $1 on ORCA LIFT, free at 18 and under. Tap once before you board; there’s no tap-off.
Sounder helps on four dates only, and two are already spent. Sound Transit advertised game trains for October 4, October 11, November 8 and December 13, all 1:25 p.m. Pacific kickoffs. The first two are played. Two left: the Cardinals on November 8 and the Giants on December 13. For the night kickoffs, both Mondays and Christmas, there’s no game train, and regular weekday S Line service is long finished before a night game ends. Coming in from Tacoma, Lakewood or Everett for a night game means Link, a car, or a room.
Don’t drive to the stadium. The North Lot and Event Center Garage are season-pass-only, tailgating on stadium property is prohibited, and resale parking passes aren’t accepted at the Lumen Field Garage. Drop-off is S Charles Street at Occidental Avenue. Rideshare is fine going in and bad coming out, and the fix is the one it always is: sleep close enough to walk, or let Pioneer Square hold you for an hour while the crowd clears.
Guide updated 2026-10-25
The money play
This event is over. Going to another date at Lumen Field? Hold a free-cancellation rate in Seattle and note the cutoff date on it. Up to that date you can drop the room without a fee.
Cancellation windows on other fans' bookings close in waves, so rooms reopen days before the event. Holding a refundable rate means every re-check can only save you money.
Plans change, matchups shift, tickets fall through. A refundable room is an option, not a commitment. Keep the best price you find and drop the rest.
Seattle, 13-10, on Wednesday, September 9 at Lumen Field. New England led 10-3 into the fourth quarter and then gave it away: Drake Maye threw three interceptions, the last one in the Seattle end zone with 26 seconds left. Sam Darnold was sacked on the sixth play of the season and ruled out before halftime with a hip injury, having completed one pass for 13 yards. Drew Lock replaced him and went 16 of 22 for 187 yards, including the 45-yard touchdown to Jaxon Smith-Njigba that tied it. Jason Myers kicked a 26-yard field goal for the lead. Patriots receiver A.J. Brown left in the third quarter with an ankle injury.
Nobody knows yet, and anyone telling you otherwise is guessing. The NFL gives the opener to the defending Super Bowl champion at home, and Super Bowl LXI isn't played until February 14, 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. Until that night there is no host city, no stadium and no ticket. The date is the only part you can plan around: the opener is traditionally the Thursday after Labor Day, which in 2027 falls on September 6, putting the game around September 9. Treat that as a convention rather than a schedule, since the NFL just used a Wednesday for 2026. The one thing worth doing this far out is nothing at all. Hotel rates in a champion's city do not move until the conference championships narrow the field in late January.
Monday night, November 2 against the Bears, 5:15 p.m. Pacific and 8:15 p.m. Eastern. Three home games are already played: Seattle beat the Chargers 30-23 on October 4, lost 32-29 to the 49ers on October 11, and beat the Chiefs 20-3 on October 25. All times below are Pacific first, because a Lumen Field kickoff quoted nationally is usually Eastern, and three hours is enough to put you on the wrong side of a return flight. Cardinals, Sunday November 8, 1:25 p.m. Pacific. Cowboys, Monday night December 7, 5:15 p.m. Pacific. Giants, Sunday December 13, 1:25 p.m. Pacific. Rams on Christmas Day, Friday December 25, 5:15 p.m. Pacific, 8:15 p.m. Eastern. Those are the posted times on the Seahawks' own schedule page, checked October 25. The Christmas game is the one to book early if you want it, because you are competing with holiday travel for the same downtown rooms rather than with a football crowd.
It was the most expensive Week 1 game of the sixteen, and the floor still fell as the game got closer. StubHub's cheapest listing was $313 on August 10 and about $266 by September 8, against an average lowest price of roughly $174 across all sixteen openers. Lower-level seats slid harder, from $489 in August to $351 the day before. The useful lesson for the next marquee opener: a Super Bowl rematch is priced at announcement, not at kickoff, and sellers holding inventory into the final week were the ones cutting. We wrote in early September that a flat market would firm up at the end. It did the opposite, and that miss is worth more to you than the numbers are.
They didn't for the biggest one on the calendar, which tells you most of what you need. Rooms were available at every tier on opener night, from Pioneer Square to the airport corridor. What a game night removes is the discount, not the inventory, because downtown Seattle's supply is deep and a football crowd is one night of demand stacked on midweek corporate demand. The exceptions are the nights when a game lands on top of something bigger, like a large convention at the Seattle Convention Center or a heavy cruise-turnaround Saturday in summer. Check those two calendars before you assume a game weekend is the problem.
Link light rail runs every game, and Sounder runs for four of them. The 1 Line and 2 Line both serve Stadium station and International District/Chinatown station, a few minutes from the gates, roughly 40 minutes from Sea-Tac. The fare is a flat $3 for adults, $1 on ORCA LIFT, free for riders 18 and under, and you tap once before boarding with no tap-off. Sound Transit advertised Sounder game trains for four 2026 home games: October 4, October 11, November 8 and December 13. Those are the four 1:25 p.m. Pacific kickoffs. The first two are played, so two are left: the Cardinals on November 8 and the Giants on December 13. For the night games, meaning both Monday kickoffs and Christmas, there is no Sounder option, and regular weekday S Line service ends long before a night game does, so fans coming from Tacoma, Lakewood or Everett are on Link, driving or staying over.
In order: Pioneer Square, downtown, SoDo, then the airport corridor. Pioneer Square starts about five minutes' walk from the north gates and is where the pregame crowd actually drinks, but supply is boutique-thin and prices it accordingly. Downtown and the waterfront hold the city's real inventory, 15 to 25 minutes on foot or one Link stop. SoDo is five minutes from your seat and cheaper, quiet and charmless after dark, and it absorbs both the football and baseball crowds when the Mariners are home. The airport corridor works better here than in most cities because Link runs straight from Sea-Tac to Stadium station, and it's the outright answer if you're flying home the next morning. Belltown is a 30-minute walk for the best restaurants on the list, fine once you're checked in.
Clear plastic, vinyl or PVC bags up to 12 x 6 x 12 inches, or a one-gallon clear freezer bag, plus a small clutch up to 4.5 x 6.5 inches carried alongside one of those. Clear backpacks are allowed inside those dimensions if they have no more than two pockets. A non-compliant bag doesn't become compliant by going inside a clear one. There's no bag check inside the stadium, so anything oversized goes back to your car, back to the hotel, or into a paid third-party locker outside the gates. This policy covers every event in the building, Sounders and Reign matches included.
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