Peacock Wins Big in the NFL Playoffs

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From wondery, I'm David Brown, and this is business wars daily on this Wednesday, January 24. If you're a fan of pro football, you've probably spent a lot of time parked in front of the tv lately. We're in the thick of the NFL playoffs, and we've seen some heartbreaking losses and some rather big wins. But perhaps the biggest winner so far? The streaming service Peacock. That's because Peacock, which is owned by NBC Universal, was the exclusive home of one of the wild card games.

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Earlier in the playoffs, the Kansas City Chiefs took on the Miami Dolphins, and if you wanted to watch outside of either of those cities, you only had two options, the NFL plus app, which shows every game regardless of where it's streamed, or Peacock, which means you had to either know someone with a password or cough up $6 to get your own account. Now, speaking of coughing up, NBC said they paid $110,000,000 to make Peacock the exclusive streamer of the game. But that investment appeared to be worth their while. The game had 23 million viewers, according to Nielsen, and NBC called it the most streamed live event in us history. NBC also said the game was responsible for the most Internet usage on a single date, 30% of all Internet traffic on that Saturday night was related to the game.

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That 23 million number, we should mention is actually rather low when compared to viewership of other wild card games, which were aired on major cable networks like CBS and ESPN. When it comes to streaming, though, this could be considered a big win for Peacock. But believe me when I say not everybody was celebrating this decision. Charles Barkley called the move low class and a congressman from New York tried to convince NBC to air the game on their network, too. Via an official letter on X, Congressman Pat Ryan called out the, quote, peacock bait and switch BS and ended his plea, noting that millions of loyal fans already pay for NBC in their cable packages. So, quoting him, let us watch the damn game. But Peacock, of course, did not listen to that impassioned plea.

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And it appears that this is the beginning, not the end, of NFL games being streamed exclusively without being aired on cable. That's because streamers are already vying for wild cards for the 2025 NFL playoffs. Peacock will once again stream an exclusive game, and Amazon is joining them. Amazon reportedly paid $125,000,000 for the rights. That prompted one writer for awful announcing, which covers sports media, to ask one exasperated question, what now? One difference between Amazon prime and Peacock is that prime is already the home of Thursday Night Football. So many NFL fans are already subscribers. Peacock, meanwhile, will have to draw in football fanatics who haven't yet signed up. But hey, they did it this year, right? Alas, for fans who have so called streaming fatigue, these moves may make them, well, even more exhausted.

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But for the NFL and major streamers, this ensures that fans, and therefore money, will keep on rolling in which, for streamers like Peacock and Prime, could be a touchdown from wondering this is business wars daily.

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I'm your host, David Brown. Written and produced by Jessica Yarmosky.

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Our executive producers are Tina Rubio and Marshall Lilly.

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