Peacock to solely carry NFL playoff recreation

The NFL is taking one other huge step into streaming by placing one among its playoff video games solely on a digital platform for the primary time.

The league and NBCUniversal introduced Monday that the Saturday evening recreation on wild-card weekend will probably be on Peacock.

The Peacock unique recreation on Jan. 13 will begin at 8:15 or 8:30 p.m. ET. The sport will probably be broadcast on NBC stations within the markets of the 2 groups. It would even be accessible on cellular gadgets via the NFL+ bundle. It is going to be preceded by a late afternoon playoff recreation on NBC and Peacock that may kick off at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Phrases of the settlement weren’t disclosed, however The Wall Street Journal reported that it is a one-year take care of the league receiving roughly $110 million.

“We had our first season with Amazon [this past year] and I feel that with the digital platforms, we’re prepared for stay sports activities at scale. And the following step is to step into the postseason,” mentioned Hans Schroeder, NFL government vice chairman and chief working officer of NFL Media. “We just like the plan that Peacock and NBC put collectively. On this case realizing we’ll have an even bigger viewers and targeted on having the widest attain doable throughout every platform.”

The league has made forays into streaming video games for almost a decade however has gone all-in over the previous couple seasons. Amazon Prime Video grew to become the unique residence of “Thursday Evening Soccer” final season, whereas ESPN has had one worldwide recreation per season on ESPN+ since 2021.

Beneath the NFL’s 11-year contract with NBCUniversal that started this season, Peacock has an unique regular-season recreation. That will probably be on Dec. 23 when the Buffalo Bills face the Los Angeles Chargers in prime time. The Cincinnati Bengals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers matchup on NBC will precede that.

“We spent loads of time with the NFL and had productive conferences concerning the correct positioning of that [Peacock] recreation,” NBC Sports activities chairman Pete Bevacqua mentioned final week when the regular-season schedule was launched. “We expect that is going to be an incredible mixture of utilizing the facility of NBC with that late afternoon recreation and driving that viewers to Peacock for the regular-season unique recreation.”

The Saturday evening wild-card recreation the previous two seasons has drawn greater than 20 million viewers. Final season’s recreation between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Chargers averaged 20.6 million, whereas Buffalo and New England averaged 26.4 million.

Whether or not Peacock can match or get near these numbers stays to be seen. Final season’s 15-game Thursday evening bundle on Prime Video averaged 9.58 million, in line with Nielsen, and 11.3 million, in line with Amazon’s first-party measurement. Probably the most-watched recreation was the primary one between Kansas City and the Chargers. Nielsen had the typical at 13 million, whereas Amazon reported 15.3 million.

NBC can have three video games throughout the first weekend of the postseason, marking the primary time a community has had that many on a single playoff weekend.

NBC additionally has the prime-time Sunday recreation on Jan. 14, whereas Fox and CBS can have the sooner contests. ESPN has the Monday evening recreation to shut the opening weekend on Jan. 15. This would be the third 12 months the NFL has performed the wild-card video games over three days.

Beneath the NFL’s contract, every of the 4 broadcast companions — NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN/ABC — get a minimum of one wild-card recreation. Of the 2 remaining video games, one rotates annually between NBC, CBS and Fox, whereas the opposite will seemingly be up for bid annually. Meaning Amazon or ESPN+ may ultimately be within the operating for a future postseason recreation.

The Related Press contributed to this report.