In an era where record streaming audiences are now routine, the latest Peacock NFL exclusive was not exactly a blockbuster.
The annual Peacock-exclusive NFL regular season game — Ravens-Packers on December 27 — averaged a 3.8 rating and 9.72 million viewers December 27, ranking third out of the four exclusive NFL games on the NBCUniversal streaming service.
Viewership trailed last year’s Peacock-exclusive, a Packers-Eagles International Series game from Brazil on the second night of the season. That game averaged more than 14 million viewers. It was also (unsurprisingly) no match for the streamer’s exclusive playoff game two years ago, a Dolphins-Chiefs Wild Card game that topped 24 million.
But compared to the first Peacock exclusive in December 2023, a Bills-Chargers game that aired in the same late December Saturday night window, viewership increased a third from 7.33 million. While Nielsen has increased its out-of-home viewing sample and shifted to a new “Big Data + Panel” methodology in the intervening years, those changes would not account for an increase of that size.
Even so, the Peacock audience was the smallest of the season for a streaming-exclusive window — falling well short of the “Thursday Night Football” season-low of 12.35 million for Ravens-Dolphins in Week 9. By comparison, Amazon Prime Video averaged 15.33 million for “TNF” this season and 16.33 million for its Black Friday game. YouTube, which aired the Week 1 Brazil game this season, said it averaged 18.5 million (albeit using a custom Nielsen methodology not directly comparable to other games).
Perhaps the starkest comparisons were to the other streaming-exclusive Week 17 games, all of which aired on Christmas Day. Netflix drew a 7.9 rating and 27.52 million viewers for Lions-Vikings and a 6.3 and 19.88 million for Cowboys-Commanders, while Prime Video drew a 7.1 and 21.06 million for Broncos-Chiefs.
As goes without saying, none of the other streamers — Amazon, Netflix or Google — were saddled with a game on the least-watched night of the week.
Notably, the audience for the Peacock exclusive was in line with the NFL Network exclusive that preceded it, a Texans-Chargers game that averaged the same 3.8 rating with 8.91 million viewers.
In other Week 17 action, Rams-Falcons averaged 12.8 million on a cable-exclusive edition of ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.” Additional Week 17 viewership figures were previously reported in this article.
