Olympic Fans Are Mad That NBC Keeps Spoiling Events in Peacock and NBC Sports App

Nobody likes spoilers — especially when national pride is on the line — but NBCUniversal keeps revealing info on their sites and apps. Angry Peacock and NBC Sports App users are letting their frustrations out in spades.

Dear @Xfinity @peacockTV Please don’t put spoilers in the Olympic descriptions for watching on demand. Thanks

— Moira Swiatkowski (@atlanticmoira) July 24, 2021

As the Tokyo Olympics continue, fans are becoming more and more agitated at NBC for revealing the winner within the title of highlight clips found on Peacock and NBC Sports App. For example, Peacock revealed the result of the 400m freestyle final, where Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus dealt American Katie Ledecky her first loss in an individual Olympic competition ever.

This also happened with the USA men's basketball team's shocking loss (sort of an evergreen statement for these games, isn’t it?) against France — and one user was none too pleased with being spoiled.

There is, however, a way around it, says one Peacock exec.

To avoid spoilers, the head of Peacock, Matt Strauss, said on Facebook, “So the Replays don’t reveal any information on the outcome of an event in the description. Only the Highlights - which is consistent with how it’s done on every platform that streams Olympics content. If you go directly to the replays row it may be a safer way to navigate if you don’t want spoilers.”

It does seem that navigating through the replays section of Peacock, as Strauss indicated, will allow you to avoid spoilers. Now, you’ll just have to avoid Peacock’s front page, its highlights tab, and social media by and large.

It would be nice if Peacock and NBC Sports App had a “No Spoilers” option where it just indicates what is in the highlight (“Katie Ledecky Swims for 400m Freestyle Gold”) or the content, without revealing the result.

Not a fan of the main page of @peacockTV’s Olympic landing page being full of spoiler recap descriptions. What if… we want to watch some of the events? Which I assumed would be easier to do on Peacock but tbh I’m more confused than ever.

— Andrea Listenberger (@andrea_ml) July 26, 2021

I assumed the Peacock Olympic streaming experience would be similar to the fantastic BBC streaming in the UK for the Olympics in 2012 (easy access to watch replays of every event without spoilers). Instead it aggressively spoils every event, and doesn’t even have all the replays.

— Keith Calder (@keithcalder) July 25, 2021