The National Football League has announced that the Philadelphia Eagles opening matchup taking place from San Paolo, Brazil against an opponent to be determined for the 2024 season will stream exclusively on Peacock. Even though the game will be exclusive to Peacock – thus requiring fans to subscribe in order to watch – it will also be broadcast on an over-the-air network in the local markets of the teams involved in the game. Christopher ‘Mad Dog’ Russo is not a fan of this decision by the league.
During his “What Are You Mad About?” segment on Wednesday morning’s edition of First Take on ESPN, Russo expressed his indignation towards the game being exclusively streamed by Peacock. Within his discourse, he presented a hypothetical scenario of an Eagles fan who continues to spend money to see the team at Lincoln Financial Field and how they would not fly down to Brazil to see the game. Russo continued by saying that the fan would then miss the game without having Peacock so the NFL is able to drive more revenue.
“It’s hard to get Peacock; I don’t want to get Peacock, alright?,” Russo said. “I want to watch the game normal. Give me [Joe] Buck and [Troy] Aikman, give me the CBS crew, [Tom] Brady’s going to do it. Give me something! Don’t put the Eagles 9,000 miles away and then put them on a cable thing on Peacock which you’ve got to subscribe to so NBC can make more money.”
NBC Sports will broadcast an opening night game during Week 1 on Thursday, Sept. 5, along with a Sunday Night Football contest on Sunday, Sept. 8. Within its stretch of primetime football matchups, which also includes a Saturday night Big Ten Conference game, the Friday night NFL game seems to be the only one exclusive to Peacock. The streaming platform is coming off a strong performance for its exclusive Wild Card round playoff matchup, drawing an average of 23 million viewers and becoming the most-streamed NFL game in history.
This past season of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video garnered a 24% increase in viewers compared to its first season, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. These metrics demonstrate that the broadcast property averaged 11.86 million viewers per game during the 2023 NFL season. The OTT streaming platform also presented the inaugural NFL game on Black Friday, which averaged 9.61 million viewers.
Prime Video will reportedly have the exclusive rights to an NFL playoff game next season, and it has continued building out its sports content vertical. The company has reportedly been exploring a potential media rights deal with the National Basketball Association as its national television contract is nearing expiration. The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery are currently in the midst of exclusive negotiating windows with the NBA that conclude on Monday, April 22, after which Amazon will be able to bid.
“They’ve got a Wild Card game on Amazon Prime Video, which means you can’t switch with the remotes,” Russo said, referring to the reported agreement for next season. “I know the NFL prints money – I understand how big they are, but boy this gets obscene.”
“One-hundred percent right,” First Take host Molly Qerim added. “I cannot stand having 8,000 different apps. It needs to be streamlined. It’s annoying – you have to remember all these passwords. I don’t have Peacock; I don’t want Peacock. I completely agree with you.”
ESPN NBA analyst Tim Legler proceeded to convey the dedication of Eagles fans in showing up to the stadium and watching their team. Russo agreed with him that Eagles fans will travel down to Brazil since they pack stadiums and fervently support their team. Off of that point, ESPN NFL reporter Kimberley A. Martin explained that she believes the devotion and zeal from the fanbase is part of the reason why this is a shrewd decision by the NFL.
“This is genius,” Martin said. “You do put the Eagles – that type of team – because they’re going to buy it.”
