NBC Sports has acquired the broadcasting rights to an additional regular season NFL game to be broadcast on Saturday, Dec. 21 across NBC, Peacock and Telemundo. The additional Week 16 matchup will mark the first time NBCUniversal will broadcast Saturday and Sunday games during that week since the 1997 season. For NBC, this follows last season when the network’s Sunday Night Football property attained a total audience delivery averaging 21.4 million viewers during the regular season. The metric rendered the property the No. 1 show in prime-time television for the 13th consecutive year, extending its streak that began in the 2011-12 campaign.
“We’re excited to work with our partners at the NFL to acquire an additional game for NBCUniversal platforms at a crucial point in the playing season,” Rick Cordella, president of NBC Sports, said in a statement. “With two NFL games in exclusive windows on the last December weekend before the holidays, we continue to deliver for our owned-stations, affiliates and partners.”
NBCUniversal presented three games during Wild Card Weekend last season, including a matchup exclusively on Peacock that averaged 23 million viewers across platforms, making it the most-streamed event in U.S. history. Although NBCUniversal is not expected to have a Peacock exclusive playoff game this season, it will broadcast the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles opening game from São Paulo, Brazil exclusively on the Peacock streaming platform. This marks the NFL’s first opening weekend game on a Friday since 1970 and the first time the league will ever play a game in Brazil.
NBC will also open the 2024 regular season with the NFL Kickoff game between the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens, a rematch of the AFC Championship. The NFL will reveal the full 272-game regular season schedule this Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST on NFL Network, NFL.com, the NFL app and NFL+. Mike Tirico, lead Sunday Night Football broadcaster, will make a guest appearance on the program where the property’s slate of games is expected to be revealed. The property falls under flex scheduling jurisdiction that can be used up to two times between Weeks 5 and 10 and at the discretion of the league between Weeks 11 and 17.
NBCUniversal is currently entering the second season of an 11-year media rights deal with the National Football League that enables the company to present Sunday Night Football games in prime time television. The company is also reportedly trying to acquire a package of National Basketball Association games that, if successful, would bring the league back to its airwaves for the first time since 2002. NBCUniversal will broadcast the Olympic Games Paris 2024 this summer and provide a multifaceted array of viewership options as part of its media rights deal with the International Olympic Committee that runs through 2032.
