John Kosner Spoke with Chris Bumbaca of USA Today about Peacock’s Exclusive NFL Playoff Game
Original Article: USA Today, by Chris Bumbaca, January 13th, 2024
On multiple occasions during the final game of the 2023 NFL regular season, NBC play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico offered viewers a variation of the same promotion over and over.
“And don’t miss the first-ever exclusively streamed playoff game Saturday night,” Tirico said as the Buffalo Bills battled the Miami Dolphins with the AFC East on the line. “Available only on Peacock.”
Downloading a streaming app to watch an NFL playoff game? For some, the idea seems ludicrous. For another type of media consumer, it’s normal. For the NFL and NBCUniversal, it’s a forward-thinking way to stay ahead of the curve – and make more money.
“We know and we see the continued evolution in the media landscape, and we want to be where our fans are,” NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroeder said on a conference call. “We know they’re increasingly, especially younger fans, on different screens.”
Why did an NFL playoff game end up on Peacock?
The addition of a seventh playoff team in each conference – and the elimination of a bye for the No. 2 seed – added two extra games to the wild-card slate. With that increased inventory, the NFL saw an opportunity to diversify its media presence on one of the biggest weekends of the football calendar.
“Considering cord-cutting and the soft TV ad-sales market, I think they have no choice but to pursue streaming because that’s where the growth is gonna be," John Kosner, the president of digital media and sports consultancy Kosner Media, told USA TODAY Sports. "That’s where media companies are investing.”
NBC Sports president Rick Cordella said the window was presented as a streaming-only game as part of the new media rights deal that went into effect prior to this season. NBCUniversal put together a pitch for the Saturday night game to air on Peacock. That, plus a reported $110 million, was all it took for Peacock to score rights to a matchup that resulted in the No. 3 Kansas City Chiefs — "Swifties," meet "The Office" — and No. 6 Dolphins.
“It’s not as if we shifted any games from linear to stream,” Cordella said. “This was an additional game that was available to us.”
In the past two years, an extra game was given to another broadcast partner, such as CBS or FOX, while the other went to ESPN on Monday.
The Chiefs-Dolphins game will still be available on the local NBC channel in the teams’ respective television markets.
“It’s historic, right?” Kosner said. “(NBC) also got a terrific game."
NFL fans becoming familiar with streaming
The NFL had 93 of the top 100 broadcasts in 2023, according to Nielsen ratings. That’s in large part due to their reach over cable, Kosner said. The league is able to offer a greater percentage of games available for free on TV than any other league.
In its second year of exclusively streaming “Thursday Night Football,” Amazon saw a 24% increase among total viewers (11.86 million) compared to the previous season (9.58 million). Kosner could see Amazon entering the postseason mix as early as 2025.
An international game was exclusively available on ESPN+ this year for the second straight season. And the NFL introduced NFL+, which allows fans to watch local and prime-time games for a monthly or yearly subscription rate.
All “Sunday Night Football” games on NBC are streamed simultaneously on Peacock (CBS does something similar with its NFL package and Paramount+). Peacock currently has 30 million subscribers, according to NBCUniversal. Comcast president Mike Cavanagh said in December the platform took on $2.8 billion in losses in 2023.
"It’s going to be fascinating to see," Kosner said. "I would be surprised if there wasn’t a lot of consternation among NFL fans as to they don’t know where the game is, they’re annoyed they have to pay $5.99 to see it. But this is how you seed new markets and new platforms."
The deal between NBCUniversal and the NFL for the streaming-exclusive playoff game is for this season only. Schroeder said future postseason games available digitally will be evaluated during the offseason.
"That really was at the top of our list as we thought about the major media partnerships we did a couple years ago," Schroeder said, "making sure all our partnerships had broad digital distribution and that we are growing in that important place for our fans."
What will ratings look like?
NBC did a version of a dry run by airing the Dec. 23 Bills-Los Angeles Chargers game exclusively on Peacock. According to Nielsen data, the game averaged 7.3 million viewers, peaking at 8.4 million from the 10:45-11 p.m. ET.
The expectation is that the first wild-card game Saturday between the Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns, which starts at 4:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, will draw in excess of 20 million viewers. NBC is betting on the lead-in to drive viewers toward Peacock and that first broadcast will be filled with self-promotion and reminders of how to watch Chiefs-Dolphins during that Browns-Texans matchup.
“We’re going to take a lot of learnings from it,” Schroeder said. “Certainly, viewership will be one of them. That will be just one of the criteria we think about and look at the opportunities we have going forward.”
Why NBC wanted to put an NFL playoff game on Peacock
Simply put: subscribers. Paying customers.
Cordella said that success won’t be judged Sunday morning or by the ratings. The long-term behavior by customers who signed up for the game – and can cancel at anytime – will be the lasting impact.
“We did this for a reason. It’s not just to get people to watch on Saturday night,” Cordella said. “It’s to get people to watch and experience all this various content that we have across the Peacock service.
“It’s down the road – did people behave how we thought they would behave once they get inside the platform?”
Additionally, Cordella pushed back on the idea that the game amounted to a $6 pay-per-view (the cost of a monthly subscription – with ads). He cited the growing men’s and women’s college basketball presence on the platform, with the top-ranked Purdue men losing Tuesday night followed by Iowa star Caitlin Clark playing the next. WWE, Premier League, MLB and other sports leagues have presences on Peacock. The Paris Summer Olympics later this year will also be featured on Peacock.
“There’s a wealth of content that people may be unaware it exists,” Cordella said.
And those are all reasons for sports fans to keep paying a monthly bill for Peacock.
“They’re very sports-focused, between EPL and college football," Kosner said. "So they’ll have to tell that story, along with ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and all that content they have. But I think it’s going to be a challenge to keep the many, many fans who really were subscribing just to watch this particular game.”
Still, Kosner predicted "millions" of sign-ups from Saturday alone.
“That’s going to be great for Peacock," the longtime ESPN executive said. "I can’t imagine what other content Peacock could offer that would give them the boom they’re going to get on Saturday night. The test, of course, is how many of the fans are going to stay with the service next month?”
The Taylor Swift effect
Kosner wondered whether the choice of Kansas City was a factor (Schroeder provided a non-answer about a holistic approach to scheduling wild-card weekend).
“You have Taylor Swift, her factor here,” Kosner said. “That’s going to attract women, that’s going to attract younger, tech-savvy fans. Was that a choice made on purpose? Because that’s an audience that Peacock would like to have.”
Who are the announcers for the Chiefs vs. Dolphins on Peacock?
Chiefs vs. Dolphins is one of three games to air on NBC properties this weekend. Tirico will be the play-by-play announcer for two, starting with the Peacock game. He will be joined by Jason Garrett as the game analyst and Kaylee Hartung as the sideline reporter.
Meanwhile, NBC opted to go with its top college football broadcast crew of Noah Eagle, Todd Blackledge and Kathryn Tappen to call the early game – leaving Al Michaels, he of “emeritus” NBC status, out of the picture. Tirico will then travel overnight to call the Los Angeles Rams at Detroit Lions on Sunday (8 p.m. ET, NBC).
Kosner expects the early Saturday broadcast to use the lead-in as an advantage and heavily cross-promote Peacock sign-ups.
What will be different about Peacock playoff game?
Like the first Peacock game, the fourth quarter will have no commercials. Cordella said they learned a lot three weeks ago during the first experiment about when to toss to the studio or stay with the break in the action on the field with the broadcast booth.
Chiefs’ Charles Omenihu offers to buy Peacock subscriptions
Chiefs defensive end Charles Omenihu reacted to the playoff schedule announcement by posting on social media: “Us playing on peacock ONLY is insane I won’t lie.”
For Chiefs (and Dolphins) fans who are considered out-of-market viewers, that’s the reality of Saturday’s game. But Omenihu wanted to help out the members of “Chiefs Kingdom” who were displeased with the situation.
“I saw the comments and want y’all to be able to watch us play," Omenihu wrote on social media. "So, I’m giving away 90 3-month Peacock memberships! To enter to win, reply to this tweet with why you should get picked. Picking winners Friday!”
The winners of the Omenihu sweepstakes will enjoy Peacock beyond Saturday night, which is what NBC wants. Everybody else better pony up that credit card information – if they haven't already.
