The National Football League (NFL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced today they have reached a multi-year agreement to renew their exclusive partnership to deliver a live digital stream of Thursday Night Football Presented by Bud Light Platinum to a global audience across hundreds of compatible devices. Amazon Prime Video and Twitch will stream the 11 Thursday Night Football games broadcast by FOX, which will be available to more than 150 million paid Prime members worldwide, and in over 200 countries and territories on the Prime Video and Twitch sites and apps across connected living room devices, mobile phones, tablets and PCs. All Thursday Night Football games broadcast by FOX will also be distributed in Spanish on FOX Deportes and are expected to be simulcast on NFL Network, continuing the league’s “Tri-Cast” model of broadcast (FOX), cable (NFL Network, FOX Deportes), and digital (Prime Video and Twitch) distribution.
Additionally, the NFL and Amazon announced an agreement to exclusively stream one regular season game globally on Prime Video and Twitch, which will be played on a Saturday in the second half of the 2020 NFL regular season. In keeping with the NFL’s long-standing commitment to make its games available on free, over-the-air television, the game will also be televised in the participating teams’ home markets.
“As our relationship has expanded, Amazon has become a trusted and valued partner of the NFL,” said Brian Rolapp, Chief Media and Business Officer for the NFL. “Extending this partnership around Thursday Night Football continues our critical mission of delivering NFL games to as many fans in as many ways as possible both in the United States and around the world.”
“We are thrilled to renew our Thursday Night Football deal with the NFL, and are excited to expand our relationship to include exclusive global streaming rights to an additional regular season game in 2020,” said Marie Donoghue, Vice President of Global Sports Video at Amazon. “We know Prime members and the Twitch community around the world love the NFL, and we remain committed to giving them the best and most customizable streaming experience possible, with a broad selection of premium content available at their fingertips.”
Thursday Night Football on Prime Video and Twitch will continue to provide members a unique viewing experience with interactive features like X-Ray and Next Gen Stats powered by AWS that bring fans closer to the game. On Prime Video, members can choose to watch the FOX broadcast, the FOX Deportes Spanish language coverage, and from multiple alternative audio options exclusive to Prime Video. The NFL and Amazon will continue to collaborate on additional NFL content and enhanced fan viewing experiences around Thursday Night Football.
In 2019, Thursday Night Football Presented by Bud Light Platinum delivered an average audience of 15.4 million viewers, including FOX, NFL Network, FOX Deportes, NFL digital, FOX Sports digital, Prime Video, Twitch, and Verizon Media mobile properties – up +4% versus the 2018 Thursday Night Football season average (14.9 million). Digital streaming across Prime Video, Twitch, NFL digital, FOX Sports digital and Verizon Media mobile properties in 2019 surpassed an average minute audience of over 1.0 million – up +43% versus the previous year (729K).
The NFL and Amazon first partnered to distribute Thursday Night Football during the 2017 season. This multi-year renewal continues a strong relationship between the NFL and Amazon which, in addition to Thursday Night Football, also features the Emmy-winning Amazon Original All or Nothing. Produced by NFL Films, season five of the sports documentary series premiered on Friday, February 7 with All or Nothing: The Philadelphia Eagles, available exclusively on Prime Video. Additionally, since 2017, the NFL has utilized Amazon Web Services as its official cloud and machine learning provider for the Next Gen Stats platform, which provides real-time location data, speed, and acceleration for every player during every play on every inch of the field.
The NFL is the most valuable content in all of sports and entertainment with 42 of television’s 50 most-watched programs of the calendar year in 2019. Thursday Night Football is a top-five show in all of television and the number two show in primetime.
About Thursday Night Football
Thursday Night Football started in 2006 with an eight-game schedule exclusively on NFL Network. By 2012, Thursday Night Football had grown to a 13-game schedule exclusively on NFL Network, where it remained through the 2013 season. For the 2014 and 2015 seasons, CBS partnered with NFL Network to present an expanded 16-game Thursday Night Football schedule. For the 2016 and 2017 seasons, NBC and CBS partnered with NFL Network to present Thursday Night Football with additional digital distribution via Twitter (2016 season) and Amazon (2017 season). In January 2018, it was announced FOX Sports would produce Thursday Night Football for the next five seasons with Amazon signing a two-year extension to their original deal. For more information about Thursday Night Football, including ways to watch, visit: NFL.com/TNF.
