Bills-Chargers Will Feature Commercial-Free Fourth Quarter On Peacock, But There's A Catch
A Christmas miracle?
Saturday's Buffalo Bills vs Los Angeles Chargers game will be the first one ever to go commercial-free during the fourth quarter as Peacock hopes to entice viewers to purchase their Premium Subscription service for $5.99 a month. Peacock will have exclusive rights to Saturday night's game for the first time ever as well.
The move is a relatively bold one considering that I don't think anyone outside of Buffalo truly cares enough about the matchup to have to subscribe to another streaming service. And yes, I purposely only mentioned Buffalo because the Bills Mafia are lunatics and Chargers fans sure as hell don't care to pay to see their 5-9 team that sits at the bottom of the AFC West.
But as with all things there is a catch. Not only is Peacock pushing the ad-free fourth quarter narrative in order to bring in some subscription revenue, but they are also not truly going commercial-free. Although the quarter won't technically have advertisements, it will still shoot over to the NBC Sports studio and the broadcast booth during timeouts, change of possessions and scores for updates, analysis and God knows what else.
Fans will hear more of Cris Collinsworth during Saturday's commercial-free fourth quarter on Peacock. (Getty Images)
WILL PEOPLE CARE ENOUGH TO TUNE IN?
So instead of losing our minds to the Burger King Whopper song or that brand new annoying Amazon 'Mamacita' jingle, we're going to have to hear more from Cris Collinsworth and Mike Tirico. Not really a fair trade if you ask me.
The Bills currently sit at -12.5 point favorites over the Chargers who just went scorched-earth after firing their head coach and general manager with three weeks left in the season. Meanwhile Josh Allen needs three more touchdown passes in order to become the first NFL quarterback ever to throw 40 touchdowns in four consecutive seasons. Will that be enough for you to drop the six bucks and tune in?
PEACOCK WILL CHARGE $5.99 A MONTH
The problem Peacock has is that gimmicks don't really work in 2023 as much as they used to. When content is essentially free in so many places, nobody is going out of their way to have to pay for it. That's even moreso the case when it comes to streaming services and NFL games that are already shown on CBS, FOX, ESPN, ABC, NBC, the NFL Network and Amazon Prime Video.
In the words of the younger generation - the same ones that Peacock is trying to get to purchase their Subscription service... "this aint it."