From a marketing perspective, you have to marvel at what NBC has done. The company billed the day as "Super Gold Sunday" as it opened with Winter Olympic action, moved to the Super Bowl, and would end with even more Olympic coverage.
Sportscaster Mike Tirico simulated this phenomenal combo by flying from Beijing to Los Angeles for a few days at the NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, in between. He told reporters Sunday "will be the most complicated event any company has ever been involved in in terms of sports broadcasting."
Even if it's a bit much, I know his colleagues appreciate it. NBC took advantage of Super Bowl LVI to promote two corporate priorities, the most-watched TV program of the year: the final week of Winter Olympics programming and the Peacock streaming service.
peacock's chance to shine
Peacock was on Sunday's pre-game show, as expected, with several plugs for the new series "Bel-Air," which began streaming on Sunday to take advantage of the big game. "Bel-Air" is a dramatic reimagining of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air".
CNN media critic Brian Lowry wrote in his review, "Promoting the show during the Super Bowl may not be the ideal addition to a dark drama," but in terms of percentages, if the series is able to stake a small portion of those viewers. But can put Will pay for the peacock."
When compared to well-established streaming services like Netflix and Disney+, Peacock has a lot to offer. NBC airs the Super Bowl with its TV network on the service on Sundays. And the network allocated time during the first quarter for advertising promoting the various new shows coming to the service.
Other NBC priorities include the imminent return of "Law & Order" and new broadcast TV series such as "Endgame" and "The Thing About Palm." Brian Steinberg of Variety reported that "the network will fuel dramas and mysteries in the fourth quarter, where tensions will run high as the game's end draws near."
That makes a lot of sense. Overall, though, I'd say Peacock Promotions stands out. An advertisement also showed interest in the ViacomCBS franchise "Yellowstone", indicating that Peacock, not Paramount+, is "Yellowstone's streaming home".
But it wouldn't be a streaming super-event without online gripes about stream quality. A quick search for "peacock" on Twitter showed some fans complaining about some audio level issues during the pre-game show.
A boost for the Olympics?
This CNN story suggests that the "Super Gold Sunday" arrangement was carefully planned by NBC. The network was "originally scheduled to air the 2021 Super Bowl, but originally swapped years with CBS to have both the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics at the same time."
With the Super Bowl broadcast, NBC may be able to increase interest in the winter sports, which has historically been underwhelming, though still dominant compared to everything else on TV.
"The last time NBC aired the Super Bowl, it followed the game with an episode of the drama 'This Is Us,'" Stu Wu and Lillian Rizzo wrote for The Wall Street Journal. "Three years before this, its airing outpaced the crime thriller 'The Blacklist', while the earlier show 'The Voice' was shown. Instead, NBC is giving it to a little-known Olympic event." The event is the monobob, a women's bobsled race making its winter sports debut. "It will give bobsledding its biggest mainstream moment since 'Cool Running,' even in this cord-cutting era," wrote Journalists.
"Now NBC is waiting to see if its sports smorgasbord Sunday, with the Super Bowl, can affect those Olympic viewership," wrote Chad Finn of the Boston Globe.