NBCUniversal is pushing its chips towards streaming.
The broadcasting company is investing $110 million on a one-year deal to become the first to broadcast an NFL playoff game exclusively on a streaming platform, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Peacock is expected to air one of the games during the NFL’s Wildcard Weekend -- the first weekend of the NFL playoffs. The local markets that will be playing in those games will be given access to the game on a local TV station that will likely be an NBC affiliate.
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NFL Media’s executive vice president and COO Hans Schroeder told the Wall Street Journal that the decision is part of the league’s overall goal of attracting younger viewers and those moving to streaming services.
NBC and the NFL’s partnership comes just a week after Amazon announced it would be investing $100 million to air the NFL’s first Black Friday game.
Amazon successfully kickstarted the movement of NFL games to streaming services last year after investing over $1 billion to acquire the rights to NFL Thursday Night Football until the 2033 season. YouTubeTV also took over the rights to Sunday Night Ticket from DirecTV starting this upcoming season.
But the majority of NFL games have still belonged to the traditional channels with CBS, Fox, ESPN, and NBC each contributing to the $110 billion media rights deal with the NFL.
NBC is the first of the four to challenge Amazon by moving a game exclusively onto its streaming service, but it may not be the last as Disney and ESPN have consistently preached the slow move to direct-to-consumer services.
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