Peacock, the streaming service from NBC, will exclusively air next weekend’s wild-card round matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins. The game, set to kick off at 8 p.m. ET at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday, will only be aired on NBC stations in Kansas City and Miami.
Everyone else hoping to watch the defending champions’ start their playoff run will have to pay a subscription fee for the game.
The Chiefs-Dolphins game, which is a rematch of a Week 9 contest that Kansas City won, will be the first playoff game in NFL history to air exclusively on a streaming network.
NBC previously broadcast a game exclusively on Peacock on Dec. 23, when the Buffalo Bills defeated the Los Angeles Chargers as 7.3 million viewers watched. The game peaked at an average of 8.4 million viewers from 10:45-11 p.m. ET during the NFL’s first-ever commercial-free fourth quarter.
Will the subscriber strategy work for NBC?
Peacock paid the NFL an estimated $110 million to air the first-ever exclusive, live-streamed NFL playoff game and the league clearly made an intentional decision to place one of the most popular teams based on viewership (the Chiefs) in that primetime window. (NBC stations in the two competing team cities will also air the game, and it will be available on mobile devices with NFL+. ) Will fans of the Chiefs and Dolphins outside of the home markets purchase the game? That’s what Peacock is betting on.
Last year’s six wild-card games across Fox, NBC, CBS and ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 averaged 28.8 million viewers. The Dolphins-Chiefs game on Peacock is very unlikely to pull that kind of number but if they top the 20 million viewership mark, I think Peacock officials and the NFL will consider it a big win. We’ll see if you watch. — Richard Deitsch, senior sports media writer
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