Comcast’s streaming service Peacock will serve as the exclusive home of the first live National Football League (NFL) game played from Brazil, the league announced on Tuesday.
The Friday evening game is scheduled for September 6, one day after the official start of the NFL’s 2024-25 season, and will see the Philadelphia Eagles play a yet-to-be-announced team.
The game will be exclusive to Peacock on a national basis, but will also air on broadcast television stations in the home markets of each team. In Philadelphia, the game is likely to air on NBC-owned WCAU (Channel 10). In the other market, the game will almost certainly air on an NBC station or affiliate.
Friday and Saturday evening football games are — believe it or not — prohibited under a federal law that passed in the early 1960s, starting with the second week of the NFL’s regular season each year. The Peacock telecast will take place during the first week of the season, bypassing the law and its unusual restriction.
“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 prime-time games on the NFL’s opening weekend,” Rick Cordella, the President of NBC Sports, said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Brazil game will mark the third NFL event exclusive to Peacock, which streamed a regular-season game between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers last year, as well as the AFC Wild Card game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs in January.
According to some estimates, the AFC Wild Card game earned Peacock around 2.8 million new subscribers who were willing to pay $6 per month or $60 per year for the ad-supported tier just to watch the event. Around 70 percent of those new subscribers kept paying for Peacock long after the game, data from research firm Antenna claims.
Comcast is expected to offer more details about the impact of the AFC Wild Card game on Peacock’s subscriber base and its overall streaming business when the company updates investors on its financial earnings in May or June.
“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, the Executive Vice President of Media Distribution at the NFL, said in a statement. “The historic Wild Card game on Peacock in January was a viewership success and we look forward to continuing our strong streaming distribution with the opening weekend game in Brazil on Peacock.”
Comcast and Peacock are not alone at scoring exclusive NFL games: Amazon’s Prime Video has served as the sole destination for national Thursday Night Football telecasts for two years now, and is heading into its third year as the exclusive broadcaster of those events. (Like Peacock, Prime Video games also air on local TV stations in the home markets of each team.) Unlike Peacock, which requires a subscription to view NFL games, Prime Video simulcasts its Thursday Night Games for free via Twitch, the gaming platform owned by Amazon.
