As a new media rights deal commences with the upcoming regular season, NBCUniversal and the National Football League announced Monday that Peacock will present the first-ever, exclusive live streamed NFL Playoff game on Saturday, Jan. 13. The game will take place during NFL Wild Card Weekend, a specific conference notwithstanding.
Additionally, the deal will make NBCUniversal the first media company to present three NFL Playoff games in one weekend, as its linear channel will broadcast an additional Saturday NFL Wild Card game and a Sunday NFL Wild Card game. NBCUniversal is reportedly paying the NFL $110 million for the additional game as it prepares to broadcast three Super Bowls over the next 11 seasons (2025, 2029, 2033).
“We’ve always had access, and when you walk into a bar, you know, ‘Hey, the playoff game is on.’ That’s a big part of the playoff atmosphere or the playoff environment,” said Anthony Lima, 92.3 The Game morning co-host. “Now the Peacock part of this is a lot of people are going to have to learn, again, how to get it. Do they want to get it, do they want to do the free trial, do they want to invest all that? They’re going to have to.”
During the NFL regular season, Peacock will be the streaming home for Sunday Night Football games on NBC, along with its accompanying studio show Football Night in America. The OTT platform will also present an exclusive NFL regular season contest for the first time when the Buffalo Bills square off against the Los Angeles Chargers on December 23.
“Two-thirds of this room does not have Peacock,” said Ken Carman, 92.3 The Game morning co-host. “I have Peacock, [and] there’s some pretty good shows on there. I said that they’re actually making a mistake there. They should have a regular season game on Peacock during Halloween, because their Halloween selection is just outstanding.”
With streaming services and ad supported television cemented as a regular part of people’s everyday lives – becoming the primary destination for television viewership according to Nielsen Media Research – questions regarding the future of the Super Bowl are starting to be raised.
Former ESPN president and co-founder and CEO of Meadowlark Media, John Skipper, has mentioned that he expects the Super Bowl to become a pay-per-view event in the future. While much of it has been speculation, a move in this way could force the NFL to fight for its broadcast antitrust exemption it was given under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. The NFL relies on this congressional decision most heavily compared to other major sports entities, as all of its regular season games are broadcast on national television.
“I think so much stuff has to change for the pay-per-view Super Bowl to be a realistic conversation, for pay-per-view football in the playoffs to be a realistic conversation,” Carman said. “Especially the Super Bowl because it’s such a global thing. Are people globally going to tune in and pay to watch the Super Bowl when they’re seeing it over network television?”
In presenting Thursday Night Football regular season games exclusively on Amazon Prime Video – an OTT service – the Supreme Court has not determined whether the congressional decision applies in this instance. Nonetheless, Amazon Prime Video streamed NFL playoff games in two of the last three seasons. However, those were merely simulcasts of a linear broadcast available in the home markets of the two teams. This year, Amazon Prime Video will be the home to the league’s first Black Friday game between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins.
The amended deal with Peacock follows a season where ratings were considerably behind those of traditional broadcast television and an ostensible experimentation by the league as to future endeavors in this sector. Whether the Super Bowl is exclusive to an OTT platform next remains to be seen.
“When the NFL does something, I go, ‘Oh, that’s not going to make sense,’ and they just make gobs of money over it,” Carman said. “But it’s the one thing that I do think it’s a bridge too far of, ‘Okay, what’s your return on it?’”
