Wednesday, October 23

Peacock will solely carry NFL playoff recreation in a primary for streaming service

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

The league and NBCUniversal introduced Monday that the Saturday night time recreation on Wild Card weekend shall be on Peacock.

The Peacock unique recreation on Jan. 13 would begin at 8:15 or 8:30 p.m. The recreation shall be broadcast on NBC stations within the markets of the 2 groups. It will even be obtainable on cell gadgets by the NFL+ bundle. It shall be preceded by a late afternoon playoff recreation on NBC and Peacock that can kick off at 4:30 p.m.

“Expanding the digital distribution of NFL content while maintaining wide reach for our games continues to be a key priority for the league, and bringing the excitement of an NFL playoff game exclusively to Peacock’s streaming platform is the next step in that strategy,” stated Hans Schroeder, NFL govt vp and chief working officer of NFL Media.

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 dwelling of “Thursday Night Football” final season whereas ESPN has had one worldwide recreation per season on ESPN+ since 2021.

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

“We spent a lot of time with the NFL and had productive meetings about the proper positioning of that (Peacock) game,” NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua stated final week when the regular-season schedule was launched. “We think that’s going to be a great combination of using the power of NBC with that late-afternoon game and driving that audience to Peacock for the regular-season exclusive game.”

NBC may have three video games in the course of 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 primetime Sunday recreation on Jan. 14 whereas Fox and CBS may have the sooner contests. ESPN has the Monday night time recreation to shut the opening weekend on Jan. 15. This would be the third yr that the NFL has performed the wild-card video games over three days.

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