Hopefully it's better than Peacock's Olympics coverage —

NBC pays $110 million to make an NFL playoff game a Peacock exclusive

The NFL is just now embracing streaming, and it's getting complicated.

The San Francisco 49ers new star quarterback Brock Purdy celebrates during a blowout 35-7 win over the Tom Brady-led Buccaneers.
Enlarge / The San Francisco 49ers new star quarterback Brock Purdy celebrates during a blowout 35-7 win over the Tom Brady-led Buccaneers.
Getty Images/Thearon W. Henderson

As the NFL slowly embraces streaming, football addicts are quickly hitting subscription fatigue. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the latest service to carve out a piece of the upcoming NFL season is NBCUniversal’s $5-per-month Peacock streaming service. Peacock is getting an exclusive NFL playoff game that won't be available anywhere other than through the online service.

The Wall Street Journal's sources say NBCUniversal paid $110 million for the rights to air one of the coveted 13 NFL playoff games. The service's exclusive game will be in the prime time slot on Saturday, January 13, making it one of the round 1 "Wild Card" matchups. Naturally, we don't know which teams are playing yet, but the two team's local markets will see the playoff game simulcast on the local NBC affiliate. Only the national viewers will have to deal with Peacock.

NBC has been trying to turn Peacock into a sports destination and recently said it will be the "primary platform" for the 2024 Olympic games.

To catch every NFL game, you'll now need the local channels: CBS and FOX for the national Sunday games and NBC for Sunday Night Football. On cable TV, you've got ESPN's Monday Night Football, with the occasional Monday game overflowing to parent company Disney's national network, ABC. Four international games and a Christmas Eve game are on NFL Network. Thursday Night Football is now on Amazon Prime, as is the new Black Friday game on November 24. The October 1 Jaguars/Falcons London game is exclusive to ESPN+, and everything not on those services will be on YouTube TV's NFL Sunday Ticket.

Channel Ars Technica