Peacock quarterly losses climb to $552M as NBA rights fees kick in

Quarterly losses for NBC’s Peacock streaming services shot up to over half-a-billion dollars, Comcast revealed in its quarterly earnings call on Thursday.

Peacock reported losses of $552 million during Q4 2025, a 48% increase compared to the streamer’s losses in Q4 2024, which totaled $372 million. The spike was expected as NBC began making payments on its new 11-year deal with the NBA last quarter. That agreement, which includes a package of exclusive games for Peacock, averages out to approximately $2.5 billion per year over the course of the deal, though rights fees begin at a lower price point and increase over the deal’s term.

The beginning of the NBA deal did contribute to a surge in subscriptions for Peacock, however. During the final quarter of 2025, Peacock added three million subscribers, jumping from 41 million to 44 million by year’s end. NBC has seen solid growth from a subscription standpoint for its streamer in the past year, having added eight million subscribers total since the end of Q3 2024.

Despite posting substantial quarterly losses, Peacock’s Q4 revenue increased by 23% year-over-year. The streamer generated $1.3 billion in Q4 2024 and $1.6 billion in Q4 2025.

Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said Peacock has “reached meaningful scale,” and “in 2026 we expect Peacock losses to meaningfully improve again,” during Thursday morning’s earnings call, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Peacock has operated deep in the red since its launch, though made meaningful improvements throughout 2025 before the NBA fees kicked in. In Q4 2023, Peacock lost $825 million. By Q2 2025, the streamer whittled those losses down to just $101 million.

Comcast expects the NBA to be a “launch pad” for the streaming service, the company said last April. The rights are expensive, sure, but the NBA will bring subscribers that would not otherwise purchase Peacock. At least, that’s what the company is banking on.

Of course, Comcast recently relaunched NBCSN, a cable channel designed for the express purpose of broadcasting Peacock-exclusive sporting events to cable subscribers, thus recouping some of the cost of expensive NBA rights through additional distribution revenue.

Comcast also raised the price of a Peacock subscription last year in preparation for NBA season. The streaming service should see another surge in subscribers this quarter on account of the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Purchasing more than a decade of NBA rights is not a short-term play. Quite the opposite. Over many years, Comcast hopes its NBA package will help Peacock reach scale at a price point required to start turning a profit. How quickly that will happen is anyone’s guess.