Surprisingly, the NFL and Taylor Swift weren’t enough to make Peacock collapse

Peacock is the only source of playoff coverage between Miami and Kansas City tonight, and the most surprising result is that over the past three quarters, the service has essentially gotten the job done. The game just entered the fourth quarter and will be “free,” but that may not be enough to make everyone happy with the NFL’s agreement to move playoff games from regular television broadcasts and move Put it on the TV. Streaming media service operated by NBCUniversal.

Most of the initial complaints from viewers online were more about the need for Peacock to tweak the game than the connection or login issues that occasionally affected live sports in the past. However, some people have noticed audio issues, or experienced streaming glitches and hangups during the action, or are only getting low-resolution versions of the game.

However, the show largely avoids the quality issues Netflix experienced with its recent F1 and golf mashup in Las Vegas, delivering a surprisingly standard HD NFL online viewing experience.

Last year, when the NFL announced that Peacock had acquired the rights to “the first-ever exclusive live broadcast of an NFL playoff game,” they knew the date, but couldn’t predict it.

Like the last Peacock-exclusive pro football game, airing it on a Saturday night is sure to hurt the ratings. But considering Travis Kelce added Taylor Swift fans to the crowd watching (along with a guy named Patrick Mahomes), that number Probably well above the nearly 10 million viewers Nielsen counted for the Bills-Chargers game in December.

Revealed: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in The Verge parent company Vox Media.