If you're a fan of US soccer, various streaming services are vying for your attention (and your money), with the latest being Peacock. NBCUniversal's online streaming service is set to benefit big time from a deal signed between Telemundo, a Spanish company owned by NBC, and US Soccer. Going forward, almost every single game played by the Men's or Women's soccer teams will be available to stream live on Peacock.
There's a slight catch for anglophones, and that's that the games will be streamed in Spanish. Sure, the actual game itself won't be affected, but you'll find the commentary and screen complications all in Spanish instead of English.
This move comes after HBO Max offered its first live stream sporting event, a USWNT soccer friendly on January 17. HBO Max is going to stream English-language broadcasts of select games (others are going to be exclusively on TNT, which is also owned by Warner Media Discovery).
For hardcore soccer fans, though, that gives Peacock a leg up as the best streaming service to watch live soccer. In addition to having all the games, Peacock has the price advantage. HBO Max starts at $9.99 for its ad-enabled plan, whereas Peacock is only $4.99 for its equivalent.
HBO Max won't be losing any games through this new deal, with upcoming friendlies between the Women's team and New Zealand, and the Men's team and Serbia, still streaming on the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned platform. However the next match on US soccer's calendar was the Men's team versus Colombia, which wasn't playing on HBO Max, however, it will play on Peacock.
Not every single soccer game will be playing on Peacock, with CONCACAF games missing — on any other year this would mean that World Cup qualifiers wouldn't be aired, but since the US automatically qualifies for the 2026 tournament (due to being one of its hosts), that's not such a loss.
The US soccer organization only announces streaming options for its games around three weeks in advance, and you can see all the confirmed games in the schedule here. At the moment, Peacock is available on every game, whereas HBO Max isn't.
Peacock's relationship with Telemundo is great news for soccer fans, as the streaming service offered the entirety of the World Cup 2022 games on its platform. Plus, separately from Telemundo, Peacock has exclusive streaming rights on plenty of British Premier League games, so it really is a great app for soccer fans.
