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Peacock’s Hoop Dreams

Comcast president Mike Cavanagh has touted Peacock’s NBA deal as a “launchpad” to streaming supremacy. But it’s not quite that simple.

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Peacock executives will have to rely on other pathways to drive people toward the NBA—and then from the NBA to some of the other series and films. Photo: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
Julia Alexander
April 29, 2025

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who raised an eyebrow when, during last Thursday’s earnings call, Comcast president Mike Cavanagh described the NBA as a “launchpad” to “further scale Peacock” over the next decade. For one, NBCU’s 11-year, $2.45 billion-per-annum deal for NBA rights was somewhat controversial. The company paid—or overpaid, depending on who you ask—for an asset that’s increasingly consumed in clips by a younger, social-first audience, which is almost certainly among the reasons that regular season ratings were soft this year (down 2 percent) despite a new generation of talented stars.

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