Notre Dame will have one 2026 football game streamed exclusively on Peacock

Thursday, Notre Dame released kickoff times for its six home games in South Bend this fall plus a start time for the Sept. 6 season opener against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field. The graphic from the official Notre Dame football social media accounts included an NBC logo next to all of seven of those games, seemingly signaling there will not be a game streamed exclusively on Peacock as there has been for the last five seasons.

Not so fast.

Awful Announcing reported Thursday afternoon, hours after the official release of game times, that there will be a Peacock-only game after all. The outlet included the following quote from an NBC representative: “We will continue to have one Peacock exclusive Notre Dame Football game each year of our agreement, including this season. We’ll have more information on this year’s game soon.”

Blue & Gold can confirm, via a trusted source, that the quote issued to Awful Announcing from someone at NBC is accurate. Notre Dame will have a Peacock-only game in 2026 after all.

Awful Announcing is speculating the game will be Notre Dame’s first true road game of the year at Purdue on Sept. 26. If Notre Dame’s graphic is accurate and every home game plus the Wisconsin game will be viewable on traditional NBC, then the five other options for the Peacock-only game are Purdue, at North Carolina on Oct. 3, at BYU on Oct. 17, at Navy on Oct. 31 and at Syracuse on Nov. 28.

The Purdue game does indeed make sense since the Big Ten has a partnership with NBC. Navy is in the American Athletic Conference, which has a deal with ESPN. The North Carolina, BYU and Syracuse games will most likely be on the ESPN/ABC family of networks as well.

The Irish’s first Peacock-only game was against Toledo in 2021. Last year, the Irish faced NC State in the Peacock-only game. A 36-7 victory in that matchup moved the Irish’s all-time record in Peacock-only games to a perfect 5-0. In between, Notre Dame beat UNLV in 2022, Central Michigan in 2023 and Louisville in 2024 in Peacock-exclusive games. Louisville is the only one of the five that was ranked at the time of kickoff, and that ended up being a momentous win for the Irish on their way to the national championship game that season.

Having a game streamed exclusively on Peacock has been a sore spot for some Notre Dame fans over the years, but it isn’t changing in 2026. At least history says the Irish should win the game, whether a faction of the fan base is tuned out because it’s not subscribed to NBC’s streaming platform or not.

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