Fractured Streaming Services Don’t Suck Enough To Keep The NFL’s Peacock Experiment From Being A Success
from the live-sports-is-king dept
There can’t really be much doubting the fact that the fracturing of streaming content and the silos that are being built around that content are not a good thing. Examples of what was an ecosystem that mostly consisted of Netflix and Amazon being ruptured into streaming services offered by content producers themselves, such as Disney for instance, has resulted in frustration in the market for some and resorting back to piracy for others.
Still, the world is moving more and more to streaming versus traditional broadcasts. Late to this party has been live sports, though a ton of movement has happened there, as well. But perhaps this specific environment is one where you would think that the NFL experimenting earlier this month by streaming a playoff game exclusively on a more niche streaming service like NBC’s Peacock might be a bad idea. The numbers the game did, however, seem to indicate otherwise, even as there was a ton of negative feedback and confusion from football fans.
The NFL playoffs started this past weekend, and with it came the first streaming-only playoff game. Usually, premium NFL games like the playoffs are on one of the major TV networks nationwide, but the Dolphin/Chiefs wildcard game was exclusively available on Comcast/NBC’s Peacock streaming service outside. NFL fans weren’t particularly happy about having to sign up for some random streaming service to watch a playoff game, but that didn’t stop many people from actually signing up, with Nielsen logging 23 million average streaming viewers for the game.
NBC says that 23 million viewers make the game “the most streamed event ever in US history” and “a milestone moment in media and sports history.” Nationally, the game was exclusively on Peacock, but local TV broadcasts were still available in the Miami and Kansas City metro areas, so 27.6 million people watched the game. The NFL hasn’t announced the ratings for the other playoff games yet, but last year, the wildcard round averaged 28.4 million viewers per game, so this got in range of that. On paper, this was one of the better games of the weekend, featuring the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the high-flying Dolphins’ offense, and it was in prime time, so with a traditional broadcast, this was probably due for above-average ratings. Peacock exclusivity reduced the audience somewhat, but it still attained NFL-class numbers.
While the numbers look quite successful, there are so many caveats to all of this that it’s hard to know where to begin. I’ll start with the confusion aspect of this. Many NFL fans that planned to watch this game had no idea ahead of time, despite any marketing or information that was put out, that this game was exclusively streaming on Peacock until they went to watch the game and couldn’t find it. I know; I was one of them. And I imagine a whole bunch of people signed up for the service last minute just to watch the game. I know; I was one of them. And then a whole bunch of those people who were annoyed at a paywalled playoff game in the most popular sport in America likely then went ahead and immediately canceled their subscription. I know; I was…well, you get it.
Then we add to all of this that one-off experiments do not demonstrate a trend. I heard a whole bunch of folks in sports media talking about how the success of all of this might lead the NFL to start making more and more games exclusive to specific streaming services, all in an effort to recapture broadcast contracts that won’t be nearly as lucrative in the future. A sort of pay-per-view situation, except it’s not per-view, but rather an attempt to force the public to sign up for even more niche streaming services all to watch what is essentially a single product. That’s going to piss people off way more than they are now about fractured streaming content. Imagine if you had to sign up for 3 different streaming services to watch a television drama because every third episode was on another service. Nobody would do that.
And the leagues better figure this out, because right now they are what is keeping cable television alive and they are quickly becoming the driving force behind streaming as well.
The NFL is basically the only institution keeping traditional broadcast TV alive. Of the top 100 highest-rated US TV broadcasts in 2023, a staggering 93 of them were NFL games. Lucrative TV contracts will keep most games on broadcast TV for the foreseeable future, but even the NFL is slowly transitioning to streaming. The weekly Thursday Night Football game is now exclusive to Amazon Prime; ESPN+ gets one exclusive game per season, and Peacock has these two games this year. The biggest NFL package, NFL Sunday Ticket, which gives fans about 13 out-of-market games every Sunday, moved from DirecTV to YouTube TV this season. The NFL even has its own streaming platform, NFL+, though it takes a backseat to partner services.
It’s a simple rule of content: you have to make the content product available to the public in roughly the way they want it, make it easy to find and watch, ensure the public knows where to go for the content, and make it reasonably affordable for them to buy and consume it.
Whatever success the Peacock experiment was for the NFL, it certainly doesn’t comport with those rules.
Filed Under: exclusives, football, playoffs, sports streaming, streaming
Companies: nbc universal, nfl
Comments on “Fractured Streaming Services Don’t Suck Enough To Keep The NFL’s Peacock Experiment From Being A Success”
It seems like the future may be for these various streaming services to be included in the cable bundle. Spectrum already got Disney+ while removing some cable channels. We will see if they get Paramount+, Peacock, Max, and AMC+ when negotiations with their related companies occurs.
At least for cable subscribers, this may eventually lessen the issue of having to subscribe to many streaming services but I suspect it would come at a high price.
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” I suspect it would come at a high price”
In today’s world that means it will struggle.
When the budget is tight, cable is the first to go. This saying will be updated with streaming in mind.
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Paramount+ (scroll down till you see the name ‘Paramount Global’).
Apparently Peacock is included in most (if not all) Comcast services too so that’s also gonna dilute the numbers.
Unfortunately...
While it makes me want to projectile vomit, the process will continue. I am led to believe this because the Vast majority are not willing to fight with their wallet, rather they’ll do just what our esteemed author did… sign up, watch, cancel and repeat.
Blech.
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And the streaming services hope you’ll forget the ‘cancel’ part before too long as it’ll be more of a hassle to remember to cancel, or they’ll put minimum contract terms of perhaps 7 days … enough that most people will conveniently forget.
I live in central Texas and didn’t know or remember that Houston had a team after the Oilers until seeing some BS story recently about its quarterback, so, no, not much of a sports fan. Which is why I have to ask, are they even making the slightest attempt to make it worth watching on a streaming service like multiple/special POVs, your own replays, etc? I’m betting there’s zero or virtually zero added value going with the streaming. Do you even know what resolution and frame rate you’re getting?
Netflix and WWE certainly see the writing on the wall, given how those two companies announced yesterday that WWE will be bringing Monday Night Raw to Netflix for at least five years. I doubt WWE would’ve made that half-a-billion-per-year deal if the powers that be thought they could get that much (or more) from cable or broadcast networks.
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Thankfully that is off tv now and can only be seen on netflix, the commie, nobama, hillaryt the vile, filthy pig loving woke company.
How much of the top 100 being NFL games is due to the writers and actors strikes affecting scripted show production for the Fall 2023 TV season.
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Probably not much. Live sporting events are routinely larger ratings draws than other types of shows. Hell, the Super Bowl is the only event in a given year that draws its kind of ratings these days.
most people are pretty dumb
Netflix’s success is another sign of this. Why do people give them money year round when they barely have enough to be worth subscribing to for one month per year.
In order for me to watch all the NFL games, I’ve had to subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket, Red Zone, Sling, Amazon Prime, and Paramount+ Having to sign up for yet ANOTHER service is bullshit. I sailed the high seas for the Peacock came, fuck ’em
I used to track every NFL game score each weekend, reviewing the box scores. Would Tivo all the broadcasts and watch any games I couldn’t watch live during the week. .
Then I stopped watching Monday night football when it went ESPN only. Thursday night too. I stopped tracking most games, and would only turn on a game if I wasn’t too busy.
This is the first year I didn’t try to watch all of the playoff games. It is getting to be too much work to watch the NFL. There are plenty of other alternative forms of entertainment.