The NFL gazes into the streaming abyss
Thoughts on "The Peacock Game," the NFL's potential investment in ESPN, and other developments that are sure to make watching live sports a little bit worse.
I get it. The NFL wants to maximize revenues for its 32 owners. Comcast/NBC likewise wants to maximize sign-ups for Peacock, its fledgling streaming platform. Americans want to maximize the amount of time they spend watching football games.
Hence, viewers were treated last Saturday to what will forever be known as The Peacock Game, the first streaming-exclusive NFL Playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs. According to a May 2023 Wall Street Journal report, NBC paid the NFL $110 million for the rights to take the biggest cultural product in America off television. Sports media figures and politicians decried the decision in the lead-up to the game. Fans complained on social media.
Nearly 28 million people checked out The Peacock Game—featuring Taylor Swift and some of the coldest kick-off temperatures in league history—anyway. NBC proclaimed the game as “the most streamed event ever.” NBC broadcaster Mike Tirico proudly declared it a “milestone event in media and sports history” during Sunday’s NBC broadcast of another game. He’s right, and it sucks.
The collapse of conventional television over the past 15 years could have been even worse without the NFL. Ninety-three of the 100 most-watched broadcasts in 2023 were NFL games. On average, more people watched Fox’s NFL post-game and overrun coverage than the NBA Finals. However, the complete occupation of a dying system doesn’t maximize revenues. Twelve-figure deals with Amazon for Thursday Night Football and Peacock-exclusive regular season games help. Leveraging your status as the only live product people care to watch at scale into $110 million deals for single games helps a little more.
And what about buying one of your biggest media partners?
Earlier this week, a few days after The Peacock Game, TheWrap reported that the NFL is “in advanced talks” to acquire an equity stake in ESPN. This comes after summer 2023 reports that ESPN (and therefore Disney) had reached out to the NFL, NBA, and MLB about potential “strategic partnerships.”
Disney leadership increasingly views ESPN as a negative asset in part because of the costs associated with live sports rights, but an even closer relationship with the NFL would likely mean exclusive access to more games at a “discount.” The reported configuration of the deal would also see ESPN “take control” of NFL Media, which runs the NFL Network cable channel, NFL Films, and NFL.com. Reporting from TheWrap and CNBC suggests that ESPN wants to be even more of a hub for all streaming sports content, whether they actually “air” the games or not. Having more NFL games and content could make that hub more appealing.
More appealing doesn’t necessarily mean better or good, however. I don’t expect enormous corporations like the NFL, NBC, or Disney to care about customers. But the race to destroy (admittedly flawed) business models to buoy another model that’s already showing real signs of distress has created a progressively confusing, cold fan experience.
Maybe I’m too sensitive to this after remotely assisting my in-laws with access to The Peacock Game and fielding disappointing texts from my dad when Peacock crashed during this week’s exclusive broadcast of the Indiana-Purdue men’s basketball game. While I appreciate the memes about nephews helping uncles log in to their ninth streamer, it’s also sad to listen to the older people in my life who already pay hundreds of dollars a month to watch one of the few things that brings them joy struggle to access those things.
The success of The Peacock Game guarantees that the NFL will do more streaming-exclusive playoff games. The viewership could have been half the alleged final number and the NFL would do more streaming-exclusive playoff games. Any new deal or investment in ESPN is not going to invalidate the NFL’s contracts with NBC, CBS, and Fox. Those networks are still desperate for NFL content too, so they’ll accept fewer games at a higher price so the NFL can make good on its new and improved relationship with ESPN. Maybe the NFL will try to placate those other partners by giving them a few more streaming exclusive games. The process never goes backward, only forward. Only worse.1
NFL fans are about to experience a new, intensified cycle of “enshittification” that has already damaged the viewing experience of other major sports across the country. U.S.-based fans of the biggest soccer leagues need a half-dozen streaming subscriptions. MLS linked up with Apple and killed broadcasts in local markets. Bally Sports has so thoroughly failed at providing quality local and regional access to NBA, MLB, and NHL games that it has been tied up in lawsuits for ages and the big solution announced this week is a partnership with Amazon—which will definitely cost the consumer more money. Even the “good” streaming options like NBA League Pass still include outdated blackout rules that keep me from watching the Indiana Pacers while I live 215 miles from the arena.
As a fan of those non-NFL sports, you expect to manage countless trial subscriptions, password-sharing text threads, and frustrating moments. But that experience enveloping the country’s most influential sports league signals yet another unnecessary revolution in the streaming era.
This is TV Plus, a newsletter about television written by Cory Barker, a media studies professor and veteran blogger. Readers can expect dispatches on industry trends, overlooked shows, and historical antecedents to current events.
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Also worth noting: not only would the NFL own a piece of a company that ostensibly staffs journalists to report on the league but also some of those people could now do that work as official members of the NFL apparatus. Bad!
Cory, would you state this differently? I don’t understand it. “ Leveraging your status as the only live product people care to watch at scale into $110 million deals for single games helps a little more.”