NFL fans are fuming about Saturday’s Chiefs vs. Dolphins wild-card game airing only on Peacock.
For the primary time, an NFL playoff game will air exclusively on a streaming platform — outside of the Kansas City and Miami markets, where fans can watch on their local NBC affiliates — as NBCUniversal and the NFL struck a one-year deal last 12 months price around $110 million for Peacock to get the exclusive rights to the Saturday night game of wild-card weekend.
Meaning fans outside of the local markets wanting to see certainly one of the most important games of the weekend, featuring Tyreek Hill returning to Kansas City to tackle old teammates Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, could have to subscribe to Peacock to accomplish that; the streaming service costs $5.99 a month or $59.99 a 12 months.
Fans have taken to social media to precise their frustration.
“So in case you’re not subscribed to @peacock, you won’t have the opportunity to look at the @Chiefs within the PLAYOFF game Saturday night. Seriously @NFL ???? 😡 This can be a playoff game. You shouldn’t should subscribe to one more channel to look at the sport. That is ridiculous #moneygrab,” one Chiefs fan wrote on X.
Blue Jays pitcher Chris Bassitt, a former Met, is amongst those outraged by the choice to place the Chiefs-Dolphins game behind a paywall.
“Letting Peacock get a playoff game needs to be an automatic firing of anyone involved and automatic life time jail sentence,” Bassitt wrote on X.
One Chiefs fan has tried alerting others to a hack to get free access to the sport.
“Listen up for anyone outside KC area that doesn’t wish to pay for Chiefs playoff game on Peacock. You don’t should pay $6 to look at this,” the fan wrote on X. “Peacock doesn’t offer a free trial, but Instacart+ offers a free 14 day trial for brand new members, and Peacock is included with the service. Cancel your service inside that 14 days. Your welcome #ChiefsKingdom.”
Chiefs defensive end Charles Omenihu, who on Sunday said the Peacock-exclusive scenario was “insane,” said Tuesday night he’s giving freely 90 three-month subscriptions to the service.