Peacock Rides NBA to First Subscriber Increase in 9 Months – Up 3 Million to 44 Million

Peacock is showing signs of life. After 9 months of flat subscriber numbers, it added 3 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2025, reaching 44 million overall.

It’s easy to pinpoint the reason: the launch of the NBA on Peacock makes it a must-have streamer for basketball fans.

So everything is sunshine and roses, right? Well, not quite. Peacock lost $552 million in the last 3 months of 2025 alone. (Sports rights don’t come cheap.)

February could be the biggest month ever for Peacock. It’s home to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Super Bowl LX and the NBA All-Star Weekend.

Unfortunately, with all those huge sports coming up, Peacock has killed off the loophole where you could get 7 days free by signing up through Prime Video.

Comcast CEO admitted that Peacock is playing catch-up to its peers. “We came to this late because of our Hulu one-third ownership,” said Brian Roberts. Last summer, Disney ultimately paid Comcast $9.2 billion for its stake in Hulu.

Peacock became Comcast’s streaming outlet when it launched July 15, 2020. But HBO Max started in May of that year and Disney+ debuted in November 2019. Old timers like Paramount+ (previously called CBS All Access) had been around since 2014 and Hulu launched in 2008. Netflix kickstarted the streaming revolution in 2007.