After a long period of sitting on the sidelines, Peacock has finally entered the bundling game.
Not only is the streamer available via Prime Video Channels as of last week (further cementing Amazon’s position as the dominant streaming aggregator), it will also become the second SVOD offered through the Walmart+ membership program, with subscribers able to switch between Paramount+ and Peacock every 90 days if they so choose.
Why the sudden enthusiasm for bundling after all this time? The likely answer is simple: sports.
Or rather, one sport in particular. The NBA’s return to NBCUniversal this fall will come with a hefty presence on Peacock, including weekly exclusive doubleheaders and national streaming broadcasts of the Tuesday games carried by NBC affiliate stations.
With NBCU on the hook for more than $27 billion for those rights over the next 11 years, the pressure is on to broaden the SVOD’s audience as much as possible to justify the expenditures.
Bundling and aggregation are the surest ways to do that in the current U.S. streaming market. With consumers exhausted by the sprawling field of à la carte apps and subscriptions, placing a subscale SVOD alongside others in a marketplace can provide valuable exposure and visible benefits.
Just ask the leaders of Apple TV+, which joined Prime Video Channels in Q4 2024 and saw 25% of its U.S. sign-ups coming from Amazon users by December, per Antenna data.
Meanwhile, Peacock subscriptions were flat at 41 million last quarter, even with a blockbuster season of Love Island USA bolstering engagement. NBCU leadership must be eager to embrace new methods of subscriber growth for a service still clawing its way out of the red. (Peacock recorded a loss of $101 million in Q2 2025.)
Reports have already indicated Fox is interested in packaging new SVOD Fox One with Peacock, though it’s unclear if there’s interest on the NBCU side. Still, with the Rubicon now crossed, it’s all but certain Peacock will only engage in more bundling from here on out.
That’s a significant milestone in the ongoing evolution of the streaming video market. As previously discussed in this space, a true post-cable “rebundling” remains elusive, but the growing business of SVOD bundling and aggregation is poised to reshape that market yet again.
It’s worth noting, for instance, that the addition of Peacock as well as Fox One gives Prime Video Channels users access to all the streaming homes of Sunday NFL coverage (the marketplace also carries Paramount+) and, in fact, makes all but one of the league’s national broadcast partners available through the Amazon interface.
While no such thing has been announced, Amazon launching a sports-centric package deal for Fox One, Peacock and Paramount+ alongside Prime Video is no longer an unthinkable prospect.
Meanwhile, sports-focused bundles are becoming more and more prominent in the streaming space. ESPN has already partnered with Fox One in a discounted SVOD package. And the soon-to-be-Disney-owned virtual MVPD Fubo last week launched what is essentially a “skinny bundle” of sports TV channels, including ESPN — which, as with most traditional cable packages, also includes access to the sports giant’s new direct-to-consumer service.
NBCUniversal channels, interestingly, are not included in Fubo’s skinny bundle, at least for now, but that could easily change come NBA season — and/or if that new NBCU sports cable network actually launches. And it remains likely that Peacock will become a key player in whatever sports-centric streaming packages emerge going forward. With the streaming wars over, cooperation and bundling are the new rules of the SVOD game.
