On Tuesday, the NFL confirmed that CBS and NBC would each air an extra Wild Card playoff game starting this January. But in the league’s official release, an interesting nugget about each game was revealed: the CBS game will be streamed on CBS All-Access and a kids-themed broadcast will air on Nickelodeon, and the NBC game will be streamed on Peacock.
Here’s the full blurb from the release.
CBS will broadcast one additional Wild Card game on January 10 with kickoff at approximately 4:40 p.m. ET. The game will also be available via a livestream on CBS All Access. Additionally, as part of CBS’ coverage, a separately produced telecast of the game will air on Nickelodeon, tailored for a younger audience.
NBC, its new streaming service Peacock, as well as Telemundo will all broadcast an additional Wild Card game on January 10 with kickoff at approximately 8:15 p.m. ET.
This isn’t the first time the NFL is airing on a kids-themed channel. ESPN simulcast the 2019 Pro Bowl on Disney XD, which they did again this past January. But that was a simulcast and not a separate broadcast, which this extra CBS Wild Card game will be. You’d imagine that there will be a different set of broadcasters, different graphics, and maybe even different camera angles and a different focus of the broadcast. I’m weirdly interested in how this will turn out.
The streaming aspect isn’t new for CBS, as All-Access has aired the network’s playoff games in recent years. But NBC’s game streaming on Peacock is an interesting development, given that Peacock still hasn’t launched yet and all of NBC’s previous playoff games were only available with an authenticated login. Putting the game on Peacock at least gives the service another shiny object to tout to potential subscribers, and also gives cord cutters who don’t want to buy an antenna another option to watch playoff football. Of note, the other two playoff games airing on NBC (another Wild Card game and a Divisional game) will *not* be on Peacock.
In a related note, the Sports Business Journal reports that CBS paid roughly $70 million for their extra game, while NBC paid around the mid-$70 million mark.
[NFL]
