Chiefs-Dolphins On Peacock Sacrifices Fans To Test Out PPV NFL Games
NFL fans are not happy that the league put a playoff game on a streaming-only platform, Peacock. They are even more upset that the game happens to be one of the marquee matchups of Wild Card Weekend: the Miami Dolphins visiting the Kansas City Chiefs.
The league seemed most likely to put the Cleveland Browns at the Houston Texans on the streaming service. That's the worst game of the weekend, by far. Back when the league hated ESPN, they would always give the network the AFC South winner vs. a Wild Card team.
The NFL knew that game would rate poorly and it was the only playoff game ESPN had the rights to air. It's part of the reason ESPN worked so hard to repair the relationship and even hired Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
But, clearly, the league doesn't have any problems in its relationship with NBC. The network did get stuck with Houston-Cleveland (in that familiar Saturday afternoon window), but they also received Chiefs-Dolphins for Peacock and Rams-Lions for Sunday Night Football.
Why did the NFL opt for Dolphins-Chiefs on Peacock when they could have put Browns-Texans there?
Earlier this year, former ESPN President John Skipper suggested that leagues might eventually try a pay-per-view model for their big games. He opined that the Super Bowl might one day cost money to watch.
The NFL isn't going to leap to charging fans to watch the Super Bowl. But, what better way to test out the potential of a pay-per-view model than to put a big playoff game behind a paywall?
Most people probably don't subscribe to Peacock, so the league will get a good idea from NBC data just how many people signed up for the service (around $6 per month) in advance on Saturday's game.
NBC released the Wild Card schedule at halftime of the Bills-Dolphins match on Sunday Night Football. At the time, they didn't know exactly which team would be playing where. However, they committed to putting the Chiefs -- and Taylor Swift -- on Peacock.
I have some familiarity with the process of networks picking playoff games. There's no question that Fox was always going to get Cowboys-Packers. Which, by the way, figures to put up probably the biggest rating of the entire NFL season.
I suspect that ESPN had the choice of Lions-Rams or Eagles-Bucs and picked the latter. Once NBC received the Chiefs for Peacock and Browns-Texans for the Saturday afternoon window, ESPN couldn't take the other AFC game.
Why? Because the winner of Eagles-Bucs couldn't face an opponent that played on Saturday. The NFL has rules about rest advantages in the playoffs. A team that plays a playoff game on a Monday night can't face a team that played on Saturday.
Thus, the other two NFC games have to be played on Sunday, as does the other AFC match.
Networks request the playoff games they want and the league tries to make everyone happy
Fox has a relationship with the Dallas Cowboys, who they air many times throughout the season. That game was likely pre-determined. The league was going to give CBS an AFC matchup. Obviously, CBS did not want Houston-Cleveland.
But, they definitely wanted the Chiefs. My speculation is that the league allowed NBC to take that game ahead of CBS. And, they let them put it on Peacock.
That's what leads me to believe that the league is interested in doing a small experiment with a streaming-only NFL playoff game.
John Skipper made a lot of terrible predictions in his time at ESPN. For example, he thought Jemele Hill was destined for stardom. Wrong.
He wasn't a strong judge of talent. Skipper let Dan Le Batard bring all of his hardcore left-wing cronies to the network and they ran off most of ESPN's core audience.
But, Skipper does understand the business side. Perhaps he saw something coming -- or maybe even knew it was coming -- and that's why he made his comments last February.
Either way, it's hard to read into the Peacock experiment anything more than the NFL wanting to see just how well an NFL playoff game does behind a paywall.
My guess? Pretty damn well.