How would 17 games even work? Half the teams would get 8 home, the other half 9.
And scheduling, right now the formula is home/ home division (6 games), rotating conference division teams (4 games, 3 year rotation), rotating alternate conference division (4 games, 4 year rotation), remaining 2 games are teams in your conference who finished same position last year.
Assuming the division games don’t change (why would they) then you could drop the two same position games and formulate a new way to assign 3 games. I just don’t see a logical way to do so. Would it be random?
Well this is incorrect. See those preseason games already charge full prices for tickets, and season ticket holders pay for them. So the ticket revenue is slight growth, but marginal in effect. There is going to be an attendance spike which would include increases in secondary revenue streams, such as vending.
But the big money is in TV, and that completely obliterates the stadium revenue. So depending on how the deals are structured this could be an increase (again preseason games are broadcast, so there is some revenue, but it is at a lower rate than regular season I suspect). So if the 7.35% is the max based on going from no revenue to full revenue, and .5% the minimum for going from the increase share only, I suspect the true effect is probably 2-3% increase for players. I could be wrong though.