NBC Sports Extends Its Notre Dame Football Partnership Through 2029
Fighting Irish Football home games to remain exclusive to NBC and Peacock
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One of the more unique [and longest-standing] rights agreements in sports television was extended on Saturday as NBC Sports announced a multi-year extension of its Notre Dame Football partnership, carrying the relationship through the 2029 season.
The extension ensures that Notre Dame Football home games will remain exclusive globally to NBC and its streaming service Peacock until the end of the decade. It also retains the rights for one game each season to be streamed exclusively on Peacock.
The partnership with NBC Sports and Notre Dame Football dates back to 1991, which means the partnership with be at nearly four decades by the completion of this extension.
“There is no better tradition than Notre Dame Football in South Bend, and we are thrilled to keep that tradition within the NBC Sports family as we extend our relationship as the exclusive home of Fighting Irish home games through the end of the decade,” Rick Cordella, President, NBC Sports said in the official announcement of the deal that was released on Saturday. “With enhanced rights that allow us to present Notre Dame Football on NBC as well as across Peacock and additional platforms, we look forward to bringing the Fighting Irish to fans in more ways than ever before.”
In addition to Notre Dame football games, NBC Sports will remain a partner of Notre Dame’s in-house production outfit, Notre Dame Studios, as well as a broadcast partner on numerous key dates on the calendar, including the annual Blue-Gold Game and Notre Dame’s Pro Day.
“We are thrilled to continue our historic collaboration with our partners at NBC Sports,” added University of Notre Dame Vice President and Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick. “In the next generation of this partnership, we will collaborate to provide our fans even more Notre Dame content through a variety of NBCUniversal’s distribution channels while continuing to put our student-athletes and their stories at the heart of our messaging.”
According the official release from NBC Sports, Notre Dame Football games are averaging 5.1 million viewers this season – the largest audience through five game broadcasts since 2005 and up 86% from last year at this point. The highlight of the year, ratings-wise, came on Sept. 23 when Notre Dame’s game with Ohio State pulled in 10.6 million viewers across NBC, Peacock and NBC Sports Digital, ranking as NBC Sports’ second-most watched regular season college football game of all-time, behind only then-No. 2 Notre Dame’s “Game of the Century” 31-24 defeat of No. 1 Florida State on Nov. 13, 1993 (22 million viewers).
