Sports
To watch Wisconsin basketball tonight, you'll need to subscribe to a streaming service – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
After clearing 100 points in an impressive opening-night win Monday, the Wisconsin Badgers now turn their attention to Tennessee, ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press poll. The Volunteers opened the season with an 80-42 win over Tennessee Tech on Monday.
But to watch, you’ll need to pony up a little extra cash. The game is one of five Badgers games this season airing on the streaming service Peacock, part of a package of games that also included Big Ten football games this year (including Wisconsin against Rutgers).
Tip time from the Kohl Center is 8 p.m. CT.
Here’s what you need to know.
Starting this year, there’s a slate of Big Ten basketball games available exclusively on Peacock, the streaming service backed by NBCUniversal.
A monthly subscription to Peacock’s premium service (which is what you’ll need to watch sports) is $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year.
Yes. NBC Sports has a deal with EverPass Media to distribute sports content to bars, restaurants and other commercial buildings.
The next Peacock game will air Dec. 5 against No. 4 Michigan State, so the good news is that, if you newly pay to watch the Tennessee game, you’ll still be within a 30-day window to see the next game on the schedule. But that’s not true for the remaining three, though those three are also within a different 30-day window together.
The other games will be Feb. 13 at home against Ohio State, Feb. 20 at home against Maryland and Feb. 27 on the road against Indiana. The Maryland and Indiana games are back-to-back on the Badgers schedule.
As with most streaming services, viewers who only want to buy one month can get a one-month subscription and immediately cancel, a maneuver that will ensure the subscription doesn’t automatically renew for another month at the end of 30 days.
There’s a full slate of Big Ten games available on the service, including three other games Friday. The first two games of the Big Ten Tournament on March 13 will also air on the service.
At the moment, Peacock is also home to new movie release “Five Nights and Freddy’s,” as well as the “Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “Fast X,” “Teenage Kraken” and several television offerings like the “Real Housewives” franchise, “Yellowstone” and “Poker Face.”
Considering that linear TV has fallen below 50 percent of all TV viewing, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The NFL already streams its Thursday Night Football games exclusively on Amazon out-of-market, and Major League Baseball and AppleTV+ have an agreement for a suite of Friday night games. It’s not a practice that’s slowing down.