NFL Announces Week 1 Game Will Be Peacock Exclusive
Football: Super Bowl LVII: A general view of the stadium at kickoff at State Farm Stadium. Glendale, AZ 2/12/2023 CREDIT: Erick W. Rasco (Photo by Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) (Set Number: X164306 TK1)
It seems that the NFL was even more encouraged by the success of their Peacock-exclusive broadcast of the Chiefs-Dolphins playoff game than we thought. The league will now move forward with having regular season games on the service too - starting in Week 1.
On Tuesday, the NFL announced that their Week 1 game featuring the Philadelphia Eagles playing in Brazil will be a Peacock-exclusive game and not available on any other service. The Eagles' opponent for the game is still to be determined.
NBC has been working hard to increase subscribers on Peacock and found a ton of success in doing so with their playoff game back in January. Recent reports indicate that the retention numbers beyond the game were very high and among the highest numbers that the service has seen since it was launched.
While the ratings for the Peacock-exclusive playoff game were the lowest of any other postseason game this past season, it clearly worked for NBC from a financial standpoint.
But many fans still aren't ready to accept this shift and have been complaining about it loudly on social media:
"No one watch this game so the NFL doesn’t keep airing games on Peacock (don’t want anyone to see a potential Sirianni disasterclass)," one user begged.
"Noo they are making games exclusive in the regular season now? This is bad for fans," wrote another.
"My advice to any football fan that’s day. Watch college football," a third wrote.
Unfortunately for fans, streaming service-exclusive football seems like it's here to stay.
