By Lauryn Luderman and Katy Popovitch

If it’s not the struggling run game or the fear of losing to Michigan for a third-consecutive time that’s causing Buckeye fans the most stress, it might be the fact that Saturday's game against Purdue was viewable only on Peacock, the subscription-based streaming platform.

It was the first time in 315 games that an Ohio State football game was not be nationally televised.

In August 2022, NBCUniversal and the Big Ten reached a seven-year agreement, beginning in 2023, to televise one Big Ten game in primetime each week — Big Ten Saturday Night. In conjunction with NBC’s Peacock partnership, the streaming service was given nine games to stream exclusively on their platform.

Jon Miller, president of acquisitions and partnerships with NBC Sports, said the company started pursuing Big Ten rights in 2015, but the conference chose to exclusively partner with FOX and ESPN instead.

“We had to put our idea in the drawer,” Miller said. “When Kevin Warren became the new commissioner of the Big Ten, we reached out to Kevin to talk to him about possibly having a relationship with NBC and creating a window every Saturday night where the Big Ten would have their own window in primetime. And he was intrigued by that.”

After Peacock’s April 2020 launch, Miller said the platform started to develop quickly. Similarly, he said cable distribution numbers began to trend in the opposite direction.

“In 2011, which is when Comcast bought NBC, there were 105 million cable television households. Fast forward to September of 2023, there are less than 70 million,” Miller said. “In our business, in order to make a deal work, you have to go where the consumers are.”

And that is in streaming.

According to Peacock, the platform will exclusively stream nine Big Ten football games this season and 16 on NBC’s Big Ten Saturday Night.

Ben Koo, the owner and editor of Awful Announcing, said exclusively streaming sports — especially teams like Ohio State and others within the Big Ten — is one of the most valuable things Peacock could do to make their service successful.

Peacock’s subscription is $5.99 per month, or students can get a discounted price at $1.99.

“Their hope is to just keep putting on one thing that you are dying to watch,” Koo said. “Their thought is that the $5 or $10 that you spend just for this one game and say, ‘It’s just one coffee.’ It’s not. It’s one coffee a month for the rest of time.”

Miller said in addition to Big Ten football, subscribers will get over 100,000 hours of programming for the monthly price. This includes Premier League Soccer, U.S. and British Open golf tournaments and even Olympic broadcasts.

If the Big Ten fan base isn’t enough, how about the NFL?

Later this year, Miller said Peacock will stream one regular season NFL game and one postseason.

Koo said Peacock’s plan, along with other platforms, is to keep putting live sports exclusively on their service here and there to keep the subscribers coming.

“That’s the business model now,” Koo said. “We are going to put 90% of the product on your cable service that you’re paying for, and we are going to take a little bit and stash it over here, and if you are a real addict or fan, then you’ll pay for it. That’s going to keep happening for everything.”

NBC’s decision to focus on the Big Ten, however, was strategic to help grow the awareness of the conference, Miller said.

“Overtime, [it was] being overshadowed by the SEC,” Miller said. “They’re now taking their rightful place, I believe, as the No. 1 most important conference in collegiate athletics. And a large part of that is the way NBC and all of its different partners have come together to grow and promote and market the Big Ten.”

Miller said there is no better time for Peacock to have exclusive streaming rights because, like how a telephone with a cord is now a touchscreen box in your pocket, the world is always adapting to new technology.

Koo, however, said older consumers might have challenges.

“That could be a struggle getting your parents or grandparents set up to watch these games,” Koo said. “Ohio State has a lot of older fans who have been watching games on T.V. easily; they just need to know the channel number.”

Despite the difficulties some may face subscribing to Peacock, Miller said he and his colleagues are happy with the progress it has made and the results are good so far.

Ohio State fans, however, did not respond well to the Peacock news.

Under an @ohiostatefb Instagram post with streaming details of the Buckeyes game against Purdue Saturday, fans saw an opportunity to voice their opinions.

One user said it “sucks,” another called it “annoying” and one fan even said whoever was in charge of this decision “should be fired.”

As a strong voice for NBC, Miller said he welcomes the outside noise because their partners, like the Big Ten, recognize that all roads are beginning to lead towards streaming.

“We see the job that Ryan Day and Gene Smith have done with that program,” Miller said. “They’re a real standard of excellence out there in college football. And that’s how we came to our decision to put the Ohio State-Purdue game [on Peacock].”

And this is just the beginning.

Peacock will exclusively stream over 50 Big Ten men’s and women’s basketball games — five men’s and seven women’s for Ohio State.

The Big Ten’s deal with NBC/Peacock runs through the 2029-30 seasons.