MW NBC has the Super Bowl and the NBA, but lost $552 million on streaming games. Is it worth it?
By Lukas I. Alpert
The network's Peacock streaming service saw growth in revenue and subscribers in the fourth quarter - but pointed to its new deal with the NBA as a main cause of its big loss
Comcast signed an 11-year, $27 billion deal in 2024 to broadcast NBA games on NBC and Peacock. The company said Peacock booked a $552 million adjusted Ebitda loss in the fourth quarter, largely due to costs associated with the deal.
The future of streaming is in sports broadcasting - but NBC may be wondering if it's worth it.
The network, a division of media giant Comcast $(CMCSA)$, said its Peacock streaming service booked a mounting $552 million loss in adjusted Ebitda in the fourth quarter, mainly due to the increased cost of sports broadcasting rights stemming from its new deal to show NBA games. Ebitda - or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization - is an measure of underlying profitability.
The benefits of the high-cost programming appeared to be there, as Peacock saw big gains in revenue and subscribers in the quarter. Yet it still resulted in the streaming service's biggest loss since the first quarter of 2024.
Peacock has been working hard to improve its position among U.S. streamers. It not only trails distantly behind leaders like Netflix $(NFLX)$, Amazon Prime (AMZN) and Disney+ $(DIS)$, but also sits behind closer competitors like Paramount+ $(PSKY)$.
Sports rights are considered key to the next phase in the development of streaming audiences. NBC and Peacock are set to air Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8, as well as next month's Winter Olympics.
To that end, NBC's streaming business said it gained 3 million paying subscribers in the last quarter, bringing its total to 44 million. It also saw revenue at Peacock rise to $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $1.3 billion in the same quarter the year earlier.
But the streamer's adjusted Ebitda loss of $552 million in the quarter was up 48% from a loss of $372 million in the same quarter in 2024.
While Peacock has never been profitable, it has narrowed its losses over the past year - to an adjusted Ebitda loss of $1.1 billion in 2025, from a 2024 loss of $1.8 billion. In 2023, Peacock recorded an adjusted Ebitda loss of $2.75 billion. Around half of Peacock's total 2025 losses came in the fourth quarter.
Comcast said the reason for the fourth-quarter spike in losses was an "increase in operating expenses" due to "higher programming costs at Peacock and elevated sports-rights expenses," partly associated with the beginning of a recently inked deal to air NBA games.
This season marks the first of an 11-year, $27 billion deal to air NBA games on NBC. Comcast said it is confident that the deal will pay off over time.
"Peacock has reached meaningful scale and continues to demonstrate improving monetization, giving us confidence in our ability to absorb near investments, including the first full year of the NBA, and in 2026, we expect Peacock losses to meaningfully improve again," Comcast's chief financial officer, Jason Armstrong, said in a call with analysts.
NBC has viewed the NBA deal as key to helping bring in a younger and more diverse audience to its platforms.
"It's important for us to take big swings when we believe they will benefit the company over the long term," co-Chief Executive Mike Cavanagh wrote in a memo last year when the deal was announced.
But the Wall Street Journal has reported that Comcast has projected that the deal will result in losses in the first few years of anywhere between $500 million and $1.4 billion annually.
-Lukas I. Alpert
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 29, 2026 12:31 ET (17:31 GMT)
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