NBC Sports has announced that its Sunday Night Football broadcast team, which includes play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico, color commentator Cris Collinsworth, and sideline reporter Melissa Stark, will call the Buffalo Bills’ matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday, December 23 at 8 PM ET. This regular-season showdown will be exclusively broadcast on Peacock, the network’s OTT streaming service
The game is part of a holiday weekend doubleheader that begins with an earlier game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers on NBC and Peacock at 4:30 PM ET. The Bengals-Steelers game will be broadcast by the network’s B1G Saturday Night team of Noah Eagle, Todd Blackledge, and Kathryn Tappen. Additionally, Terry McAulay will work as the network’s rules analyst for both games.
Peacock will be the home of the first-ever exclusive live-streamed NFL playoff game on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024 as part of the league’s Wild Card round. The network will broadcast an additional Wild Card game on the same day, along with a prime-time matchup the next night on NBC and Peacock. As a result, NBCUniversal will become the first media company to present three NFL playoff games in a single weekend.
The Peacock exclusive Wild Card game, along with the forthcoming regular season matchup, will be broadcast on NBC stations in the cities of the teams competing. Moreover, the game will also be available to stream on mobile devices utilizing NFL+. According to NBC Sports, the NFL is the only sports league that presents all of its regular-season and postseason games for free on over-the-air television within local markets.
NBC is currently in the first year of its new media rights contract with the league, for which it reportedly pays $2 billion annually. Sunday Night Football has remained the No. 1 show in prime-time television for 12 consecutive years, sustaining its ratings amid the departures of longtime play-by-play announcer Al Michaels and sideline reporter Michele Tafoya.
