Editorial note: We planned on running this midseason but a bit of a scheduling anomaly occurred in which Peacock went a month plus in without airing a game. While a little late, with a game this week we still thought better now better than never.
For the second year in a row, college football fans following their team are being put to the test- Should they pay for Peacock in order to watch their team? In late September the streaming service had perhaps their most robust lineup of college football games yet featuring some of the country’s largest fanbases with the following game on the service.
Ohio State vs. Michigan State.
Louisville vs. Notre Dame
Nebraska. vs Purdue
Earlier this year Oregon’s nail-biter versus Boise State was on the streaming service. That’s a long way of saying, Peacock is regularly airing high-stakes games for big-time programs. With NBC having these double- and tripleheaders while NBC airs fewer games, this is a major annoyance of having to find their games on Peacock and for sports bars which depend on satellite or cable to show games.
In our third installment of the Sports Streaming Outrage Meter, we’ll review the Big Ten’s contract with NBC/Peacock, now in its second year. We grade each streaming nuisance in four categories that each have a scale of 1-25, (1 being not that annoying/inconvenient/and frustrating, 25 being extremely annoying/inconvenient/and frustrating). The most egregious score possible would be 100 which would be four 25 scores, spanning these four categories. For grading consistency, 2-3 AA staffers will submit their own grades which will be averaged out for one score. Below are the four categories.
Event Broadcast History/Scale of Annoyance
How accessible was the event in question before this? How many people are affected by this? Is it an event usually watched by millions who now have to sign up for a new service that nobody has versus an event that few people watch that is now on a service that a lot of people have?
What is the Ransom?
What is the cost and commitment of someone who pays the ransom to watch this event? Is it a free trial for one month or is this a year-long annual subscription you can’t get out of that is $100?
Broadcast Quality
What is the quality of what you are specifically paying for? Is it better than before on the streaming service or has it lost things like production quality, sideline reporters, and studio shows? Is the picture quality good and is the streaming feed consistent?
ROI
How many events and hours do you get by subscribing to this service? Is it a whole season or just one game? Will you use this service to watch other sports, movies, and shows that are popular?
How We Got Here:
In 2022, the Big Ten signed a landmark seven-year deal with Fox, CBS, and NBC. That gave Fox the “A” package, CBS with the 3:30 p.m. ET package and NBC taking the primetime “Big Ten Saturday Night.”
Our Andrew Bucholtz wrote about the deal in 2022:
Meanwhile, NBC is getting a Saturday night football package for NBC and Peacock, plus eight additional Peacock-exclusive football games a year, giving them a total of 14 to 16 football broadcasts each year. They’re also adding a Peacock-exclusive basketball package, which may have as many as 47 men’s basketball and 30 women’s basketball games.
You may not have thought much about Peacock at the time, but it’s grown to the point where it’s had an exclusive NFL Wild Card Playoff Game earlier this year plus the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. It also had an exclusive NFL game in Brazil in Week 1. Peacock was also a major reason why NBC signed with the NBA earlier this year. Peacock is clearly making sports a core part of it’s content strategy.
Event Broadcast History/Scale of Annoyance
Before this current contract, Big Ten football was split between Fox and ESPN. All games were on television. In the present deal, CBS and Fox still air games on television. Fox has created its Big Noon Saturday window putting its biggest games in the early afternoon, games are still found through your local channels. Fox doesn’t have a major streaming element aside from Tubi. CBS has Paramount+, but the Tiffany Network hasn’t gone streaming exclusive.
As for NBC, it’s been aggressively seeking content for Peacock and in the first year of the deal, put some of Caitlin Clark’s games in her final season with Iowa on the streaming service. Now it puts games like Ohio State at Michigan State and this weekends matchup of ranked Illinois versus winning record Rutgers on the service. While this isn’t on the scale of Ohio State-Michigan, it’s still a conference game with implications that make viewers have to either look to Peacock if they’ve previously subscribed or sign up anew.
We call this a major annoyance.
This is a 21 out of 25.
What is the Ransom?
Peacock is $7.99 per month and adds another $6 for an ad-free option and you can’t avoid ads if you watch sports. Put this together and you’re paying $13.99 if you don’t want to see ads during movies and shows. Again, you’re going to see ads in sports so “ad-free” is a misnomer.
Is there a free trial for Peacock? No, there is not so you’re going to have to pony up if you want to watch Saturday’s game. We rate this a major annoyance. Usually, there is a free trial to sign up for a streaming service so you can sample it and then either continue if you like the content or cancel before you have to pay. Well, you’ll have to enter your credit card numbers for Peacock. No matter what, you’re paying. The good news is that you can still cancel after just one month and all in all for many, this ransom is one they can pay if inclined.
This is a score of 7 out of 25.
Broadcast Quality
NBC is producing the game for Peacock. Don’t worry if NBC Sports will do this on the cheap as far as the production is concerned, but Colt McCoy will be the analyst and he hasn’t exactly wowed people in his first year in the broadcast booth.
Former DirecTV Red Zone Channel host and current Cleveland Browns radio voice Andrew Siciliano will do the play-by-play while Lewis Johnson will be on the sidelines. As Meatloaf used to sing, Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad.
This gets a 13 out of 25.
ROI
Peacock does have a lot of content whether it’s sports, WWE, entertainment, reality TV, or news. It’s going to have the NBA starting in 2025 and will continue to stream the Olympics as long as parent company NBCUniversal carries the Games. Expect as long as NBC picks up sports, Peacock will have a role in hopes that will lure eyeballs to its streaming service. Additionally, if you’re a fan of a Big Ten team, you’re going to get some men’s and women’s basketball games as well so that is a nice bonus in addition to the annual Peacock exclusive regular season game (last year, Peacock had an exclusive playoff game as well). So for many the sports alone given you could use the service for a few months and get EPL, Olympics, an NFL game, and some Big Ten games, is pretty darn solid.
Throw in shows and movies on the service, Peacock is one of the more complete systems. Whether you think there is enough value for $7.99/month is totally up to you. Peacock ranks at 1.2% of the streaming market putting it in 9th place behind YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and others. It is the 7th most subscribed platform globally. Still, you have to make that decision whether one game is worth it for you.
Due of the sports programming alone, we’ll give this a more valuable score, a 7 out of 25.
Final Score
This gets a 48 out of 100 on the Outrage Meter.
Sports fans are finding more and more events moving to streaming. Again, there’s no free trial so that’s a huge annoyance. But NBCUniversal is priding itself that people have stayed with Peacock, especially after January’s NFL Playoff game and the Olympics and they’re hoping you stay after sampling whatever Big Ten game sucks you into subscribing. Yet, it’s another example of needing to find the game beyond traditional means.
