Peacock Gets Its First Exclusive NFL Game This Season with Primetime, Week 16 Matchup
NBCUniversal has been cleaning up this week in terms of landing big-name sporting events for its streaming platform Peacock. Just hours after announcing the service would stream every single event of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the NFL’s schedule makers have revealed that Peacock will get an exclusive pro football game in the 2023 season.
The game will take place on Saturday, Dec. 23 at 8 p.m. ET, and will feature Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills traveling out west to face Justin Herbert’s Los Angeles Chargers. Every NFL game has the potential to turn into a barn-burner, but this one will feature two of the best young quarterbacks playing the game, both of whom led their teams to a playoff berth in 2022.
In terms of scheduling prizes, Peacock walked away with a real gem, at least on paper. Not only will its streaming-exclusive game feature two of the best teams in the NFL, but it will also take place in Week 16, which means there’s a good chance there will be playoff implications for the contest as well. Throw in the fact that it is happening the weekend before Christmas, and there’s a high probability a lot of eyes will be on the game. It’s far too early to know how the season will pan out, of course, but right now this Bills-Chargers matchup seems like a must-watch.
The addition of an exclusive NFL game is just another feather in the impressive array of live sports plumage of Peacock. The service joins Prime Video and ESPN+ as the only services to get streaming-exclusive NFL games. Prime Video became the only way to watch national broadcasts of “Thursday Night Football” games in 2022 — though the games are still shown on broadcast TV in the markets of the teams playing. ESPN+ got its first exclusive game in 2022, and will get another in 2023, but since ESPN+’s games are international contests and start at 9:30 a.m. ET, it can be argued that Peacock’s primetime matchup is the superior matchup to have.
This may end up being the NFL’s strategy to get its customers more used to finding its product on streaming. The league is performing something of a balancing act, these days; it knows it has a wide array of older viewers, who are generally less comfortable with streaming and are used to finding the league’s games on TV. On the other hand, younger viewers flock to the NFL on streaming; “TNF” captured the youngest audience of any NFL broadcast package since 2013 last year. The league will likely continue to make a few more games streaming-only every year, acclimating customers to thinking of its product as multi-platform.
There’s no chance of the NFL becoming a streaming-exclusive sport any time soon, though. The league’s current contracts with major broadcast networks like CBS, FOX, and NBC run through the end of the 2033 season, so the NFL will stay on TV for at least the next decade. But that gives the league plenty of time to iron out the metrics of boosting its streaming offerings even further. Perhaps it will finally start offering single-team packages of NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV, or shift “Monday Night Football” exclusively to ESPN+.
It will be fascinating to watch the NFL try to widen its reach to younger viewers on streaming, while still attempting to retain its older linear TV audience. But users who prefer streaming games will be happy to see that the quality of streaming-exclusive games appears to be improving, judging from the Bills-Chargers matchup that will appear only on Peacock this season.
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.