The Peacock Wild Card Game broadcast attracted 23 million viewers, becoming the most-streamed NFL game of all time

For all the angst and frustration over NBC exclusively broadcasting the Wild Card battle Saturday night on streaming service Peacock, an average of 23 million viewers tuned in to watch the frozen showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins, making it the most-streamed showdown. Game in NFL history.

Before Saturday, the most-streamed game came in late November, when the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Seattle Seahawks on “Thursday Night Football” before an average of 15.26 million viewers on Prime Video.

The spike in viewership came on Saturday as fans outside of Kansas City and Miami were required to pay a subscription fee to watch Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs beat Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins. Kansas City's 26-7 win marked the first playoff game in league history to be broadcast exclusively on the over-the-air network.

Peacock's “Premium” subscription costs $5.99 per month and includes live sports events. Last week, the service was reported to have 30 million subscribers, with Comcast previously saying subscriptions were up 75 percent compared to last year.

Peacock previously had an exclusive broadcast of a regular season game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Buffalo Bills on December 23. That match averaged 7.3 million viewers, peaking at 8.4 million in the fourth quarter. For comparison, “Thursday Night Football” on Amazon Prime averaged 11.86 million viewers in 2022, which was 24 percent more than in 2021 (9.58 million), according to The athleteRichard Deitch.

Broadcast success

said Rick Kordella, president of NBC Sports, who also oversees sports at Peacock The athlete last week that he would judge the Chiefs-Dolphins game first on the quality of production and then if the technology distribution was smooth and clear. Next goals included metrics like how many signups the game attracted, how many new subscribers they had, whether they met their internal traffic goals, and how the advertising partners felt afterward.

The viewership goals weren't something Peacock executives paid for externally because the $110 million they paid the NFL for the game was ultimately done in order to acquire the subscription. There's no doubt that the one thing parent company Comcast wanted to avoid was a viewing disaster and it got the opposite. Its 23 million average viewers tops last year's least-watched playoff game (Chargers-Jaguars, which averaged 20.61 million viewers on NBC) by a few million viewers.

Both Dori and Peacock will be thrilled with this number of views. what does that mean? We are certain that we will have an exclusive live-streamed NFL playoff game repeated next year. — Richard Deitch, senior sports writer

Required reading

(Photo: Denny Medley/USA Today)