Bill Streicher
If you believe society has developed beyond the point where you should have to get a cable bundle to watch Phillies, Sixers and Flyers games, you may get your wish in relatively short order.
According to Jessica Toonkel of The Wall Street Journal, NBC Sports Philadelphia could soon be an option as an add-on with Peacock:
"The entertainment company plans to add its regional sports channels to Peacock as soon as early 2025, according to people familiar with the plans.
"The company is still completing details of the plan and the rollout could be delayed. One option executives are discussing is to make the channels available as add-ons in the local markets so that fans there can pay extra to stream games."
To be clear, if you currently have access to NBC Sports Philadelphia through your cable plan, nothing would change for you if/when this goes through. This isn't a case where some games would be streamed exclusively on Peacock, as has been done in the NFL.
At least for the time being, this would just offer another route to watch the games if you don't want to pay for an entire cable bundle. Services like YouTube TV have made having some sort of cable plan more affordable in recent years, and it's a good value if you also want to be able to watch NFL games, local news, politics, etc. But, in theory, if you just want to watch one channel, you shouldn't have to pay for an entire cable subscription.
Obviously, the amount of buy-in here from consumers will depend upon the price it would cost to get the add-on for Peacock. Currently, it costs $7.99 a month for a subscription to Peacock, which also comes with access to shows like "The Office" and "Yellowstone." So presumably you would have to pay for that, and then a subscription for the NBC Sports Philadelphia add-on.
The best setup for the consumer would be for them to be able to get the add-on not only just for the sport they want, but by game. If you want to watch Sixers and Flyers, but not Phillies, why pay for all three? If you want to pay to watch Opening Day for the Phillies, but not a West Coast game that starts at 10:10 on a Tuesday night in May, why shouldn't you be able to do that?
Alas, that feels unlikely. The guess here is that to get the Peacock add-on, you're going to have to pay for NBC Sports Philadelphia on a monthly or annual basis, not per event. Still, having this option would be a massive development for cord-cutters.
