Fubo isn’t happy about Peacock’s exclusive rights to the NFL’s Wild Card game.
The streamer’s CEO, David Gandler, decried Comcast’s decision to put the playoff game exclusively on Peacock, which is owned by the cable company, as a bad decision from a business and consumer standpoint.
“I’m horrified,” Gandler said at the Needham Growth Conference.
Comcast’s decision to put the NFL Playoff game as well as a regular season game for the 2023-24 season likely strikes a dissonant chord with Fubo because the streamer pays to air NBC.
This comes as streamers and cable companies are in a fierce competition for viewers. Live sports — particularly NFL games — are a tried-and-true way to draw people in.
Peacock said its exclusive stream of the Wildcard Game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins reached 23 million total viewers across the streaming service, NBC stations in the teams’ respective cities, and NFL+ making it the most-streamed event ever.
The rights deal and the viewership numbers are a big win for Peacock as the lower-tier streamer, which ranked as the seventh-most popular streaming service in December behind YouTube, Netflix, Max, and Disney+.
“From NBC Sports and Peacock to the Comcast team, our entire company worked seamlessly to plan for this game and executed flawlessly to deliver a streaming experience with the NFL on a scale that’s never been done before. It’s a very proud moment,” Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement after the figures came in.
Fubo declined to comment further.
The news was reported earlier by Streamable.
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