Peacock lines up free Premier League content for launch

By Eric Abent/July 8, 2020 1:45 pm EST

With Peacock's launch date quickly approaching, NBCUniversal continues to trickle release information about the streaming service. Today, NBC announced that Peacock will be home to a lot of NBC Sports Premier League coverage when it launches on July 15th. This seems to be a one-day-only promo meant to give those exploring the service a taste of NBC Sports' soccer coverage.

"On July 15, Peacock will be the exclusive home for all free NBC Sports' Premier League coverage featuring four matches," NBC said in its announcement today. The July 15th Premier League schedule kicks off at 12:00 PM EDT with Premier League Live, which will be followed by a total of three games at 1:00 PM EDT: Burnley v. Wolverhampton Wanderers; Manchester City v. Bournemouth; and Newcastle v. Tottenham.

The main event of the day is Arsenal v. Liverpool, which is due to premiere at 3:15 PM EDT. NBC says that all of these matches will include "the full complement of studio programming" that's normally associated with them, including pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage. Coverage wraps up at 5:15 PM EDT with Goal Zone, with NBC saying that all six hours of content will be offered commercial-free.

This, of course, isn't going to be the standard Peacock experience for free users. Peacock will be offered in three different tiers: free, which features a limited amount of ad-supported content; Premium, which runs $4.99 per month and doubles the content over the free tier but still shows ads; and finally, an ad-free tier that costs $9.99 per month and removes the ads from most – not all – of the Premium tier's content.

Peacock definitely has its work cut out for it if it wants to make a splash in the streaming space. There's already a ton of competition out there, including some of the biggest names in streaming like Netflix, Hulu, and now Disney. It's clear that NBCUniversal hopes this free Premier League content can not only bring in viewers but also drive subscriptions, so it'll be interesting to see what happens come July 15th.