NFL looks to build on streaming momentum from 2023
After seeing record streaming viewership in 2023, the NFL has announced has unveiled plans for more exclusive streaming games next season. NBCUniversal’s Peacock has secured the rights to exclusively stream the Week 1 game in São Paulo, Brazil (Friday, Sept. 6), while Amazon’s Prime Video – home of Thursday Night Football – will add an NFL Wild Card game to their schedule this season. This will mark the second time an NFL playoff game has been available exclusively via a streaming service following last season’s Wild Card game on Peacock.
“As media consumption habits evolve, the NFL continues to work with our partners to put our games on digital platforms where our fans are increasingly spending their time,” Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution said at the 2024 NFL annual meeting in Orlando, FL. “The viewership success of both Thursday Night Football on Prime Video and the historic Wild Card game on Peacock last season are strong indicators our streaming distribution is resonating with our fans.”
Peacock Picks Up Week 1 Game in Brazil
The historic São Paulo game – the NFL‘s first-ever regular season game in South America – also marks the first time the league has played a game on Friday night of their opening weekend in over 50 years. The Philadelphia Eagles are the first team to be announced for the game, with their opponent and kickoff time to be determined later.
“It’s exciting for Peacock to exclusively showcase the NFL‘s first-ever regular season game in Brazil as part of NBC Sports’ unprecedented presentation of three primetime games on the NFL‘s opening weekend,” says Rick Cordella, president, NBC Sports. “Peacock continues to deliver the best experience in sports streaming, as this game will follow this summer’s Paris Olympics and Paralympics, which will have every event live streamed on the service.”
Peacock will once again stream all NBC Sunday Night Football games in 2024, including the playoffs, and the Football Night in America studio show. The exclusive Peacock Sunday Night Football Final returns with expanded postgame coverage following SNF each week.
Meanwhile, Prime Video adds an NFL Wild Card game to their existing Thursday Night Football schedule and will have sky-high expectations after last season first-ever exclusively streamed NFL Playoff game. Last year’s AFC Wild Card game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs exclusively on Peacock is the most-streamed event ever in the U.S., reaching a total of 32.1 million viewers and delivering an average audience (AMA) of approximately 23 million viewers across Peacock, NBC stations in Miami and Kansas City, and on mobile with NFL+, according to official Nielsen data.
“We are thrilled to bring the excitement of an NFL Wild Card playoff game to Prime Video for the first time,” says Jay Marine, global head of sports and ads, Prime Video. “Following our first two groundbreaking seasons of Thursday Night Football and our first-ever Black Friday Football game, we’re proud to expand our relationship with the league, and we’re looking forward to continuing to innovate for fans this season.”
In keeping with a long-standing NFL policy, both the Week 1 Brazil game on Peacock and the Wild Card game on Prime Video will be available on free, over-the-air broadcast television in the local markets of the competing teams as well as on mobile devices with NFL+.
In its second season as the home of Thursday Night Football, Prime Video averaged 11.7 million viewers during the 2023 season, an increase of +22% versus 2022. Additionally, Thursday Night Football featured 13 weeks of double-digit, year-over-year viewership gains and all 16 games won the timeslot among total viewers against competing programming on broadcast and cable.
