Two major events, one streaming platform: Peacock’s Super Bowl test

On Feb. 8, NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service will carry both Super Bowl LX and live coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics.

It will be a test of how well streaming platforms can juggle multiple major events, with each needing delivery, discovery and promotion at scale. The challenge for NBCUniversal and Peacock extends beyond simply making the games available to watch.

On connected TV devices, where a major share of Americans consume video at home, the events will compete for attention on a crowded home screen. 

“February 8 marks a genuine inflection point for live sports on streaming. When the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics land on the same platform, scale alone won’t decide success. Execution will,” said Francesca Pezzoli, vice president of marketing at Looper Insights.

“Discovery, home-screen placement, and frictionless navigation across CTV devices will determine whether audiences actually find the content and stay with it,” added Pezzoli. 

To quantify how well a streaming service promotes its content, analysts at Looper Insights use a metric called Media Placement Value, or MPV. MPV measures how prominently a title appears on a streaming platform’s home screen, in curated rows or in search results. A higher MPV indicates greater visibility.

Two additional figures provide more detail.

Dollar MPV, or $MPV, assigns a monetary value to a placement based on the platform where it appears. It’s essentially the estimated cost of reaching an audience at that screen position. Performance MPV, or pMPV, measures the number of impressions a placement generates across a given device.

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How Tubi’s Super Bowl LIX coverage performed

When Fox streamed Super Bowl LIX on Tubi last February, it was the first time a Super Bowl was carried on a free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) platform. Looper Insights tracked how Tubi positioned that game across three connected TV devices: Samsung TV, LG TV and Google TV.

Google TV delivered Tubi’s most prominent placement. According to Looper Insights, securing an equivalent position today would be valued at $200,000 in $MPV and would generate an estimated 15 million impressions. Samsung TV placements were valued at $97,900 in $MPV and 7 million impressions, while LG TV placements came in at $35,600 in $MPV and 3 million impressions.

Across all three platforms, Tubi’s top positions were valued at a combined $333,500 in $MPV and 25 million impressions for a single day.

Tubi’s promotional approach was built around urgency.

Its placements used large “Stream Free” text alongside red “Live Now” buttons, paired with high-contrast visuals of the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. Tubi also secured dedicated content rows on its top platforms for Super Bowl coverage, a feature Looper Insights noted as a key differentiator.

How Paramount+ positioned Super Bowl LVIII in 2024

Looper Insights conducted a similar analysis of how Paramount+ positioned Super Bowl LVIII coverage the previous year. Paramount+’s top three placements, on LG TV, Apple TV and PlayStation 4, were valued at a combined $452,400 in $MPV and 35.4 million impressions for a single day, figures that exceeded Tubi’s on a per-placement basis.

Paramount+’s strongest individual position was on PlayStation 4, valued at $377,300 in $MPV and 28 million impressions. However, Paramount+ did not secure dedicated content rows for its Super Bowl coverage on those platforms. Paramount+ also took a different promotional tack, using countdown messaging such as “1 Hour Until” to build anticipation ahead of kickoff rather than emphasizing real-time urgency.

Who actually watched

Placement data tells part of the story. Viewership numbers from the two most recent Super Bowls offer additional context on how those positioning strategies translated to audience reach.

Fox Corporation reported that Tubi’s Super Bowl LIX simulcast set a new Super Bowl streaming record, reaching 15.5 million peak concurrent viewers and a 13.6 million average minute audience. The company said 24 million unique viewers tuned in across game day programming, which included pregame coverage.

Paramount+ did not disclose specific viewership figures for its Super Bowl LVIII coverage. The company did report that 3.4 million new subscribers signed up over the weekend of the game. Of those, 2.3 million activated a one-week free trial. 

What the data means for Peacock

Looper Insights’ comparison of the two Super Bowls surfaced several patterns that may be relevant as Peacock prepares for Feb. 8.

Tubi’s use of real-time urgency messaging drove more immediate viewer engagement than Paramount+’s countdown-based approach, according to the firm’s analysis. Its high-contrast branding and clearly visible calls to action were designed to be legible at a glance on connected TV screens, where viewers are often browsing quickly.

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Tubi also chose breadth over depth in its platform strategy, securing strong visibility across multiple devices rather than concentrating on a smaller number of premium placements.

Looper Insights noted that this approach contributed to Tubi’s overall visibility, even where Paramount+ achieved higher values on individual placements.

For Peacock, Feb. 8 adds a layer of complexity that neither Tubi nor Paramount+ faced in their respective Super Bowls. The platform will need to promote Winter Olympics coverage alongside the game, a dual-event challenge on a single streaming service with no direct recent precedent. 

The home-screen placement question becomes more complicated when two major live events compete for the same limited space. 

NBCUniversal has framed the day as part of a broader campaign it calls “Legendary February,” packaging the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics together as part of Peacock’s sports lineup. If that combined branding carries over effectively to connected TV home screens, it could reduce the navigation friction Pezzoli flagged — turning two separate events into one sports destination rather than two competing ones.

How the major CTV platforms allocate row placement and shelf space to that combined package will be a key factor in whether the approach works.

Peacock’s subscription model also sets it apart from the two most recent benchmarks. Tubi’s Super Bowl was free, removing any barrier between viewer and content. Paramount+’s Super Bowl functioned partly as a subscriber acquisition tool. Peacock’s existing subscriber base means a significant portion of its potential audience will not face a paywall, but the platform will still need to convert attention into engagement.

Advertising will add another layer of pressure. Peacock’s Super Bowl stream will carry premium ads, and advertisers will expect measurable reach and engagement in return. The relationship between home-screen prominence and viewer action, the core of what Looper Insights documented across both the Tubi and Paramount+ analyses, will be a closely watched variable for Peacock’s ad partners as a measure of the platform’s ability to deliver at scale.

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