Peacock: NFL Wild Card game streams exclusively on a digital platform for the first time
NFL Wild Card Game To Be Streamed Exclusively On A Digital Platform For The FIRST Time – With Peacock Chosen To Face Off In January
- Peacock is home to the Saturday night game during NFL Wild Card weekend
- The league has been making forays into streaming games for nearly a decade
- DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news
The NFL takes another big step in streaming by posting one of its playoff games exclusively on a digital platform for the first time.
The league and NBCUniversal announced Monday that the game will take place on Peacock on Wild Card weekend on Saturday night.
The Peacock exclusive game on January 13 was scheduled to start at 8:15 PM or 8:30 PM ET. The game will be broadcast on NBC stations in the two teams’ markets.
It will also be available on mobile devices through the NFL+ package. It’s preceded by a late afternoon playoff game on NBC and Peacock that kicks off at 4:30 p.m. ET.
“Expanding the digital distribution of NFL content while maintaining wide reach for our games remains a top priority for the league, and bringing the excitement of an NFL playoff game exclusively to Peacock’s streaming platform is the next step in that strategy,” said Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president and chief operating officer of NFL Media.
The NFL Wild Card game will be streaming exclusively on a digital platform for the first time in January
The exclusive Peacock game on January 13 starts at 8:15 PM or 8:30 PM ET
The league has made forays into streaming games for nearly a decade, but has gone all in over the past few seasons.
Amazon Prime Video became the exclusive home of “Thursday Night Football” last season, while ESPN has played one international game per season on ESPN+ since 2021.
Under the NFL’s 11-year contract with NBCUniversal that began this season, Peacock has an exclusive regular season game. That will be on December 23 when the Buffalo Bills take on the Los Angeles Chargers. The game between Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers on NBC precedes that.
“We spent a lot of time with the NFL and had productive meetings about the proper positioning of that (Peacock) game,” NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua said last week when the regular season schedule was released.
The San Francisco 49ers faced the Seattle Seahawks on Wild Card weekend last January
“We think this is going to be a great combination of using NBC’s power with that late afternoon game and driving that crowd to Peacock for the regular season exclusive game.”
NBC has three games during the first weekend of the postseason, marking the first time a network has had so many during a single playoff weekend.
NBC will also have the Sunday primetime game on January 14, while Fox and CBS will have the earlier games.
ESPN has the Monday night game to close out opening weekend on January 15. This will be the NFL’s third year playing the three-day wild card games.