First two Tottenham league matches bumped to Peacock service in USA

Ready to get mad at faceless American television bureaucrats? NBC has revised its television schedule for the first few weeks of the new Premier League season, and it has made a change that affects Tottenham Hotspur fans. Originally scheduled for NBCSN, Spurs’ opening season home match against Everton on September 13 has been bumped to NBC’s streaming platform Peacock and will not be televised.

That means that Tottenham’s first two league matches will both be on Peacock and not televised, as it was previously announced that Spurs’ match at Southampton on September 20 will also be on Peacock. The first time American Spurs fans will be able to watch their team play on live television will be the September 26 match against Newcastle United.

This is particularly infuriating because the Sunday 11:30 a.m. time slot is almost always carried on NBCSN. And it’s not as though they have something more important happening at that time — I checked the NBC Sports Network TV listings for Sept. 13 and at 11:30 they are switching from Premier League Mornings to Mecum Auto Auctions — “Coverage from the latest vintage collector car auctions”.

Wow.

I get that Peacock is a new service that NBC parent company Comcast is desperate for people to sign up for, but this is just ridiculous. It should be noted that the Brighton-Chelsea match on Week 1 has also been bumped to Peacock on Monday, so Blues fans are also furious. Peacock was already announced as the replacement for the much-derided NBC Sports Gold this season, but putting a club like Spurs on the pay-tier for the first two weeks of the season feels like a punch to the gut.

On the other hand, Americans can still watch more Premier League football on TV than anyone in England, so context is important. But not THAT important. I’m mad!