NFL fans may not know that Thursday Night Football will make its debut on Amazon Prime’s streaming video platform beginning with week two’s Chargers-Chiefs contest Sept. 15.
Tonight’s season kickoff between Buffalo and the L.A. Rams remains in its recent spot on NBC.
But next Thursday, it’s a relatively new ballgame for the league and fans, with 15 Thursday games (minus Thanksgiving Day contests) streamed exclusively each year on Prime through 2032.
The NFL carried a single Amazon-only game each of the past two years, but with Fox and NFL Network also broadcasting the game. That backup plan is gone this year.
Amazon’s NFL coverage, complete with new broadcast tandem Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit and a whole bunch of broadcast bells and whistles, will be the biggest sport to embrace a streaming-only distribution deal.
MLB has two exclusive streaming packages this season — on Apple TV+ on Friday nights and Peacock (NBC’s streaming service) on Sundays. There’s also the YouTube Game of the Week, a free but still confusing curveball to baseball scheduling. The Mariners played in consecutive YouTube and Apple TV+ games a few weeks ago, a sentence I don’t think I ever thought I would write.
ESPN also showed NHL games on its streaming service (ESPN+) this past season, and ESPN+ will carry the Denver-Jacksonville NFL game on Oct. 31 from London.
Judging by the armada of delivery vans heading west each morning, many folks already pay the $14.99-a-month fee for Amazon Prime. Customers also will be able to pay $8.99 a month to stream the Thursday games.
Amazon will allow bars and restaurants who have the NFL Sunday Ticket package (in its last year on DirecTV; expect it to move to a streaming service in 2023) to show Thursday night games.
That means 7 Cedars Casino will be a top destination to watch a Thursday game once the new sportsbook opens this fall.
Home-market TV
Home-market broadcasts will still occur on over-the-air channels.
Seattle’s Thursday-night football game is Dec. 15 at home against San Francisco.
The Hawks-Niners game will be televised on over-the-air television in Seattle, like the 1980s and 1990s Sunday Night Football cable broadcasts.
NFL expects a dip
“It’s natural that Thursday viewership will drop, with games moving from a free network [Fox] to a streaming service,” Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s chief media and business officer, said at the spring NFL owners meetings. “We [were] averaging 15, 16 million [viewers] on Thursday night football.”
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
