You may have to get a Peacock subscription if you want to watch every single game in the NFL playoffs. The streaming service will serve as home to the first-ever exclusive livestreamed NFL playoff game, NBCUniversal and the league have announced. It’s a wild card game that’s scheduled to take place on January 13th, 2024, which is the first playoff weekend. And by “exclusive,” they meant it will not be aired on national TV or even on cable. Only the local markets for the two competing teams will have access to the game outside Peacock, through a local TV channel that’ll most likely be an NBC affiliate.
As The Wall Street Journal notes, the NFL made postseason games available for streaming in the past. However, this marks the first time one can only be accessed on a streaming service by most viewers. NFL chief operating officer Hans Schroeder has acknowledged that the decision could upset some fans who’ll have to get Peacock to watch that one game, but he believes it “will be transformative for sports on digital.”
In fact, Schroeder said the NFL will likely continue making one of its wild card games exclusively accessible via streaming going forward. Whether Peacock will carry the game again in 2025 will probably depend on how the 2024 game performs for the service: Peacock and the NFL only signed a one-year deal, which The Journal says cost around $110 million.
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