Breaking: Peacock Announces Exclusive NFL Week 1 Game; Prime Video to Officially Get Wild Card Streaming Exclusive
The NFL is continuing its takeover of TV screens during the fall, and has announced a new game in Brazil that fans will only be able to stream on Peacock.
The NFL is no longer satisfied with dominating linear TV ratings. Streaming viewership is the next frontier for the league, and this week the NFL announced that it would be showing another game exclusively on Peacock in the 2024-25 season. The league also confirmed its Prime Video-exclusive NFL Wild Card game for the upcoming season, and took a shot across the NBA’s bow by announcing that it would schedule a Christmas game again this year, despite the holiday falling on a Wednesday.
- Peacock will stream a Friday night game from São Paulo, Brazil during the opening week of the NFL season.
- The channel/platform that will be awarded this year’s Christmas game has not yet been announced.
- NBCUniversal’s streamer gained 3 million subscribers from its last exclusive NFL game.
Peacock got the rights to stream two NFL games exclusively in 2023: a regular season game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Buffalo Bills in December, and a Wild Card contest featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins in January. The streamer has scored another exclusive in 2024, the league’s first-ever game played in São Paulo, Brazil. The timing of the game should also figure to be important for Peacock to continue its expected momentum from the Summer Olympics.
The game will be played during the opening week of the 2024 season on Friday, Sept. 6. It will feature the 2022 NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles, with a second opponent to be named later. As a Peacock exclusive, the game will not be available to watch on NBC as the Thursday night season-opener will be on Sept. 5.
“It’s exciting for Peacock to exclusively showcase the NFL’s first-ever regular-season game in Brazil as part of NBC Sports’ unprecedented presentation of three primetime games on the NFL’s opening weekend,” said Rick Cordella, President, NBC Sports. “Peacock continues to deliver the best experience in sports streaming, as this game will follow this summer’s Paris Olympics and Paralympics, which will have every event live streamed on the service.”
The Peacock-exclusive Wild Card game was the target of much fan abuse last season, but from a financial standpoint, it was everything that NBCU could have hoped for. Data collected by Antenna shows that Peacock gained 3 million subscribers just from the game, and that 78% of those customers remained subscribed to Peacock one month following the game.
This is a shrewd move on NBCU’s part, particularly as the São Paulo game is slated to take place just weeks after the conclusion of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Peacock will carry every single event of the games live, and recently unveiled some exciting new features surrounding this year’s Olympics, including a whip-around show that will catch viewers up on all the action in a day hosted by NFL RedZone veterans Scott Hanson and Andrew Siciliano. This exclusive NFL game will give sports fans who signed up to Peacock to watch the Olympics a reason to keep their plan for at least another month.
What Other News Did the NFL Make This Week?
In addition to its new Peacock-exclusive game, the NFL made some other schedule-related announcements this week. First was confirmation of reports that circulated in February which stated that Prime Video would get an exclusive Wild Card game of its own in 2024-25. Prime Video had first dibs on the 2023-24 Wild Card game, but declined them and the content eventually went to Peacock. Seeing how successful NBCU was with its broadcast, Amazon is now ready to try its hand at attracting a similarly large number of new customers with an exclusive playoff game of its own.
The NFL also announced that it would play two games on Christmas Day in 2024. The league played three Christmas games in 2023 when the holiday fell on a Monday but previously stated that in 2024 it would not play a game on Christmas because this year it’s on a Wednesday. But the NFL has officially changed its mind on that decision, a move which will no doubt anger NBA executives who are used to dominating Christmas Day ratings with marquee matchups.
It’s not yet clear which streaming service or channel will partner with the NFL to stream this Christmas’ games. Prime Video offered the league's first-ever Black Friday game in 2023, and it has to be considered a strong possibility for the Christmas contest; however, it’s likely the league will leave bidding on the game open for as long as possible to collect as big a sum from the winner as possible.
The NFL knows that offering more streaming options is important for capturing fans in as many age groups as possible. A recent survey found that 71.5% of NFL viewing is still done on linear TV, but that number is falling as audiences become more comfortable watching games on digital platforms. Compelling audiences to adopt streaming platforms like Peacock in order to watch exclusive games will help increase that comfort level even more, and the NFL is taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by Peacock yet again.
Peacock
Peacock is a subscription video streaming service from NBCUniversal that includes original shows, blockbuster movies, and classic television series. Peacock is home to “Yellowstone,” and “The Office,” as well as original hits like “Poker Face” and “Bel-Air.” You can also watch live sports including NFL, MLB, WWE, Olympics, Premier League, NASCAR, French Open, College Football and Basketball, and PGA Tour. Premium Plus subscribers can stream their local NBC feed in all 210 markets.