NBCU Betting on Big February Sports Run to Reignite Peacock Growth

NBCUniversal is using an unprecedented confluence of top-tier sports next month to help boost Peacock, its streaming service that, despite rising financial success, has seen its subscribers plateau. 

The NBC Sports parent company will show the 2026 Winter Olympics from Italy, Super Bowl LX, the NBA All-Star Game, and the start of Sunday Night Basketball, all in the span of three weeks in February—forming a collection of top-tier programming that has been a top corporate focus and is expected to set a series of viewership and revenue records. 

While NBC itself and that broadcast television presence will be a central element of that coverage, so, too, will Peacock. Beyond a mix of simulcast and exclusive competition coverage, Peacock will also offer “Rinkside Live” and “Courtside Live,” with those features introducing several curated alternate camera angles, such as inside the coaching areas of figure skaters and team benches in ice hockey. 

As has been the case with other big events such as the 2024 Paris Olympics, Peacock will also offer customized multiviews during the upcoming competitions.  

The latest streaming features add to those Peacock has implemented for the arrival of NBA coverage on the NBC platforms. 

Streaming Metrics

The heightened push behind Peacock arrives as the service continues to increase its revenue and reduce its losses, but it still lags well behind many of its top competitors among general-entertainment streaming services.

At the end of 2025’s third quarter, corporate parent company Comcast said Peacock generated $1.4 billion in revenue, down slightly from the comparable period in 2024, while adjusted losses were cut by more than half to $217 million. Subscribers, however, remained flat at 41 million for the past three fiscal quarters, and that total furthered concern within the investment community. That figure, in place between January and September 2025, is only 10 million more than what Peacock had at the end of 2023. 

By comparison, Netflix has more than 300 million paid subscribers, Disney+ has 131.6 million subscribers, Hulu has 64.1 million subscribers, and Warner Bros. Discovery has 128 million streaming subscribers—most of it from its HBO Max that is part of a pending merger with Netflix. 

The upcoming sports events, however, are a major part of a 2026 sports lineup on Peacock that includes 7,600 hours of live content spanning 20 different sports and more than 55 properties.

“The combined impact, whether it’s a simulcast [live event] on Peacock or an exclusive on Peacock … is an important part of our ability to take the DNA of NBC and bring it into a digital world,” Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh tells Front Office Sports. “This is just part of what we want Peacock to be. Full stop. This does help build engagement, help build the service, and in our case, it goes hand-in-glove with the broadcast network.”

Comcast is set to report its fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 29, in advance of the big sports events in February. The company also recently completed its spin-off with Versant.