Don’t watch NFL playoff games exclusively broadcast on streaming services if you don’t want them there

The NFL has sold the rights to a playoff game to Peacock, the streaming service owned by NBC.

“We are thrilled to partner with the NFL on this industry milestone,” said Pete Bevacqua, the chairman of NBC Sports, as if he had just put a man on Mars instead of found a new way to fuck us.

Many are justifiably upset about the NFL selling the rights to a playoff game to a streaming service you have to pay for outside of all the networks you already had to pay for to watch regular season games. But that doesn’t matter because they’re still going to watch it.

A handful of people got paid a lot of money to perform a cost-benefit analysis and they determined that the benefit of however much NBC paid them outweighs the cost of pissing fans off. They know you’re mad, but they also know you’re going to fold like a table under the weight of a dive-bombing Bills fan outside their stadium before that same playoff game.

So prove them wrong. There is another way; one where you don’t have to pay a dime. Just don’t watch this one playoff game. If you’re a die-hard fan of one of the teams playing then you get a pass, but for the rest of us, there’s no excuse.

Don’t buy a new subscription or even make a free trial that you’ll forget about until you’ve paid for it for eight months. If you’re already subscribed to Peacock, then watch Parks and Recreation while the game is going on. Our money is the only thing the NFL will listen to, so use it.

If no one gets a new subscription because of this and the game has terrible ratings, then Peacock won’t want to continue paying for the rights to the game and no other streaming service will want to either. Sure, they may not give a shit about MY $4.99, but they definitely care about EVERYONE’S $4.99. While it may seem like we’re helpless passengers on a ship being tossed around in an ocean of corporate greed, it’s important to realize that we actually do have collective power.

People are realizing more and more that how they spend their money is a form of voicing their support or displeasure with corporations. Whether it’s people boycotting clothing companies because they don’t want to pay for fast fashion because of the unethical implications, or Republicans buying an ungodly amount of Bud Light, and then shooting it with an RPG to show that they’re not buying Bud Light, people are realizing they have the collective power to change the behavior of corporations.

Selling the rights to a playoff game is only the natural progression after Thursday Night Football this past season. Even though those were consistently terrible matchups, boring games, on a weeknight, with a broadcast team that no one seems to like, I guess the business model worked.

Do you want a future where you need subscriptions to Peacock, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO Max, and Quibi to watch Wild Card weekend? Oh, Quibi’s not a thing anymore? It will be if they get their hands on the rights to an NFL playoff game. And then we’ll have to watch Bengals vs Chiefs on our phones, interrupted by advertisements for an action-drama show starring Christoph Waltz with episodes that are seven minutes long.