Sunday night football viewers won’t have to change their viewing habits for the next 11 years. The NFL is staying put on NBC. The two parties have announced a brand new 11-year extension which calls for NBC Sports to continue as the exclusive home for primetime television’s #1 show for the past 10 years, Sunday Night Football.
The deal will officially go into place in 2023. Under the terms of the new agreement, NBC and Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, will broadcast the Sunday night game thru 2033. Starting with the 2021 season, Peacock will begin streaming all NBC Sunday Night Football games and the Football Night in America studio show. Peacock will also create a new exclusive and expanded postgame show following each week’s game.
“We are excited to expand upon our relationship with the NFL, which is the most powerful content in sports and entertainment,” said Pete Bevacqua, Chairman, NBC Sports Group. “Sunday Night Football has been television’s most-watched primetime show for a decade, and we look forward to continuing our best-in-class presentation of SNF, Super Bowls, and playoff games for many years to come, while also broadening our audience with Peacock becoming the live streaming home for all NBC NFL games.”
“Comcast and the NBC family have been outstanding partners for us and we are excited to continue that relationship long into the future,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “Sunday Night Football is firmly established as the No. 1 show in primetime television, and we are looking forward to working with NBC and Peacock to continue to bring the NFL to more fans in more ways than ever before.”
According to NBC’s press release, the network will broadcast a Divisional Playoff game in each of the next 13 seasons. They will also televise two Wild Card playoff games during the 2021, 2022, 2023, 2026, and 2031 seasons, with a single Wild Card telecast in all other seasons. In each of the next seven seasons, NBC will carry a Sunday primetime Wild Card game. All NBC NFL postseason games will stream live on Peacock.
Peacock will also serve as the exclusive national home of six NFL regular-season games – one each year from 2023-28 (giving NBC Sports an additional regular-season game in those seasons) – and will launch a virtual NFL channel, highlighting classic games, as well as NFL Films’ series, library, and archival content, which will all also be available on demand. NBC Sports will have the option to incorporate enhanced and interactive features in game presentations to be streamed live on NBC digital platforms, including Peacock.
Another positive for NBC/Peacock, they’ll have the opportunity to produce four of the next 13 Super Bowls, including an additional three Super Bowls as part of the new deal. The events which will fall under NBC’s control are the 2022 Super Bowl in Los Angeles, and Super Bowl games that will be played in 2026, 2030, and 2034. The cities for those games have not yet been determined.
One tidbit that did cause a few media pundits to raise their eyebrows, the NFL will have the opportunity to terminate the agreement with NBC on a one-time basis after seven years of the new deal have been completed. Whether they do or not will depend largely on the appetite for media rights at that time.