NBCUniversal has officially followed through on its long-gestating plan to add its four regional sports networks to Peacock as paid subscriber add-ons.
All four local sports channels will be available for the first time outside the pay TV ecosystem for bundling with the $7.99 Peacock Premium or $13.99-a-month ad-free Peacock Plus. Pricing is differentiated based on specific channels, and it breaks down this way:
- NBC Sports Bay Area — $17.95 a month for the official RSN home of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. The channel also provides extensive non-game coverage for the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, as well as game coverage, news, analysis and other related programming for San Jose State athletics and the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA G League.
- NBA Sports California — $17.95 a month for local game access to MLB’s Oakland Athletics, the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and the NHL’s San Jose Sharks. There’s also San Jose State football and basketball coverage, as well as access to NWSL pro soccer team Bay FC and AHL hockey team the San Jose Barracuda.
- NBC Sports Boston — $14.95 a month for the official RSN home of the NBA’s Boston Celtics and the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun. The channel also includes copious non-game programming tied to the NFL’s New England Patriots, as well as game access to the Maine Celtics, an NBA G League team.
- NBC Sports Philadelphia — $24.95 a month for the channel that features the MLB’s Philadelphia Phillies, the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers.
Regional sports networks have been caught in a vice of escalating sports programming licensing costs and degradation of the pay TV ecosystem because of cord-cutting. Meanwhile, leading pay TV companies — notably NBCU parent Comcast — have forced RSN operators to accept movement of their networks to higher priced programming bundles, which further winnows their subscription ranks.
Many of those in or formerly in the RSN ecosystem at this point have expanded their distribution beyond pay TV to “plus”-branded direct-to-consumer streaming platforms. The NBC Sports channels were among the last holdouts in the market … until the pocket-to-pocket arrangement with Peacock.
The subscription streaming service will certainly obtain a lot more reach. Peacock ended 2024 with 36 million subscribers, which is about three times the reach that Comcast’s Xfinity-branded cable TV service finished the year with (12.53 million customers). It should be noted, however, that each RSN can only be accessed within the designated market area of its respective teams, so are not available to consumers nationwide.