Kansas City, Missouri – Saturday night’s wild-card clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins captivated a record-breaking average of 23 million viewers, cementing its place as the most-streamed game in NFL history. Despite concerns over NBC’s decision to exclusively broadcast the game on its streaming service Peacock, the matchup drew immense interest.
This accomplishment surpassed the previous streaming record set late last November, when the Dallas Cowboys triumphed over the Seattle Seahawks on “Thursday Night Football” with an average of 15.26 million viewers on Prime Video. However, Saturday’s viewership surge came at a price for fans outside of Kansas City and Miami, who had to pay a subscription fee to witness Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs take down Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins. Notably, this game marked the first playoff matchup in league history to be aired exclusively on a streaming network.
Peacock’s “Premium” subscription, which includes live sports, costs $5.99 per month. This past week, the service reported having 30 million subscribers, experiencing a 75 percent increase from the previous year, according to Comcast. A previous exclusive Peacock broadcast occurred during a regular-season game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Buffalo Bills on December 23. This game attracted an average of 7.3 million viewers, with a peak of 8.4 million in the fourth quarter. Comparatively, Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night Football” broadcast averaged 11.86 million viewers in 2022, a 24 percent increase from the previous year.
Rick Cordella, president of NBC Sports, who also oversees sports on Peacock, emphasized that the quality of the production and the technical distribution were of utmost importance for the Chiefs-Dolphins game. Additional metrics of success included the number of subscribers the game attracted, the quantity of new subscribers, meeting internal traffic goals, and gauging the satisfaction of advertising partners.
Peacock executives did not publicly highlight viewership goals because their primary objective was to acquire subscriptions. However, the game’s average viewership of 23 million exceeded last year’s least-watched playoff game between the Chargers and Jaguars, which drew an average of 20.61 million viewers on NBC. This achievement is undoubtedly a relief for parent company Comcast, as it hoped to avoid any viewership disasters.
The substantial viewership numbers for the Chiefs-Dolphins game leave both the NFL and Peacock ecstatic. It also raises the likelihood of another exclusive live-streamed NFL playoff game in the near future, providing football fans with unprecedented access to the action.
[Image: Denny Medley / USA Today]