• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, January 17, 2024

Did you hear that big resounding “thud” over the weekend?  That was the sound of greed landing on the heads of millions of NFL fans as they were forced to subscribe to Peacock, the NBC streaming platform, to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Miami Dolphins, and the proclamation following of said game being the “most watched streaming show” in history.

I was thoroughly surprised the game was being broadcast exclusively on streaming, because that forced 23 million people to subscribe to Peacock at $5.99 per month to watch the game.  This comes on the heels of the fact that NFL fans are already paying for a number of different solutions in order to watch their favorite games.  They have to choose between standard cable, Amazon Prime,  NFL Ticket, NFL Red Zone and now Peacock.

What makes it a bit more frustrating is that if you have the money to pay for all these services, you still get a game interrupted by commercials throughout.  I understand NFL games are made for TV commercial interruption, but surely if your fans are paying for these services, they can get some form of premium experience, right?  Nope.  That’s not how the game is played.

Beyond the fact they made you subscribe to watch the game, they then had the gall to declare the whole thing a massive, record-setting success during the Sunday night game, with a broadcast package telling the viewer just how successful it was.

This move seemed a little sleazy. You were letting those same people, whose money you just sucked from their bank accounts, know that you were super smart in how you did it.  I didn’t pay to watch the game, and I was still insulted.

We all know football exists as a business first and a game second, but this was a tone-deaf move even for the NFL.  They allowed NBC to suck money from 23 million people, no small expense to many.  I wonder if they will also boldly communicate the number of people who unsubscribe from Peacock after one month because they only did it to watch that one game?  

Have you watched "The Morning Show "on Apple TV+?  In that show, UBS (a fictional broadcast network) creates and keeps trying to push a fledgling streaming service that has to be bailed out by a billionaire in an attempt to save a legacy broadcast network from extinction.  Sound familiar?  NBC is not in that dire a situation, but this smelled like a desperate move from NBC, and I was not impressed. 

It was even more tone-deaf when you realize they aired that “success” package in the face of all sorts of negative articles online about how greedy the NFL is. There was nothing positive other than the veiled coverage of the NBC press release patting itself on the back.

Remember when you knew you could watch football on two networks, and eventually, with the emergence of ESPN, three?  Now there's no fewer than seven different platforms through which you could be enticed to watch football.  If you want to watch it all, you could be spending as much as $150 per month just to watch the NFL.  That gets beyond the means for many people, and definitely beyond rationality for most.

The NFL has got to listen to its fans, who already shill out hundreds of dollars for jerseys and apparel, tickets to regular season games in person, and streaming platforms. This was a step in the wrong direction, and one I seriously hope is not repeated. Don’t try to get fans to empty what’s left in their wallets just to watch a first-round playoff game on another streaming option. Your ad dollars are not decreasing, so let’s keep the moral high ground for a little while longer and reward fans just a little bit, please.