Amazon's Prime Video will be the exclusive home of the NFL's Thursday Night Football games. A massive $1 billion/year agreement marks not only the league's first all-digital partnership but also the biggest sports deal with any streaming service so far.
The NFL’s First-Ever Digital Package
The deals kick off in 2023 and last through 2033, according to the official announcement on the Amazon website. The company will exclusively broadcast 15 Thursday Night Football games and one pre-season game per year on its Prime Video streaming service in the US.
With the new 10-year exclusive agreement signed, Prime Video will be the only place to watch the NFL's Thursday Night Football games nationally, starting in 2023. Previously, these games were also available on terrestrial and cable TV.
Local over-the-air broadcast networks can still air the games but only in select cities. Thankfully, this will permit people who aren't subscribed to Amazon Prime or Prime Video to tune in via their cable operator (or other regular pay-TV services) or with a digital antenna.
Also, Prime Video will host new pre-game, half-time, and post-game shows. Like before, games will include Amazon's interactive features, such as X-Ray and Next Gen Stats.
As part of the new deal, Prime Video also secured rights to a weekly slate of original NFL programming and expanded rights to in-game highlights for all NFL matchups. Prime Video and the NFL will continue to collaborate on exclusive NFL content and enhanced fan viewing experiences around Thursday Night Football, with more information to come ahead of the first game in 2023.
Amazon will pay a reported $1 billion/year for the TNF package, according to CNBC.
The NFL's other four licensees---Fox Sports, Disney's ABC/ESPN, Viacom's CBS, and Comcast's NBC are reportedly paying north of $2 billion/year each.
What About Mainstream TV Networks?
CNET has more on the new rights arrangements:
- CBS: The American Football Conference's Sunday afternoon games will broadcast on the CBS network and stream on the company's new Paramount+ streaming service. Additionally, CBS will broadcast 2023, 2027, and 2031 Super Bowl games.
- ABC/ESPN: The Monday Night Football will continue to be available on Disney's ESPN networks. ABC has won rights to broadcast two Super Bowl games and some exclusive regular-season games. ABC and ESPN will air the 2026 and 2030 SuperBowls. All ABC/ESPN games will be simulcast via Disney's ESPN+ streaming service.
- Fox Sports: The NFL's Sunday afternoon games will continue to be available on Fox, while the company's free streaming service Tubi has won rights to stream NFL programming. On top of that, Fox gets to air 2024, 2028, and 2032 Super Bowls.
- NBC: Comcast's NBC has retained rights to produce the Sunday Night Football games (its new Peacock streaming services will simulcast all of the games, too). A select number of NFL games will have "an exclusive feed" throughout the duration of the ten-year agreement. NBC's also secured rights to air 2025, 2029, and 2033 Super Bowls.
As you can see for yourself, these new 10-year deals and arrangements have also helped expand the online availability of many of the NFL's games.
A Major Win for Amazon
Amazon's been simulcasting TNF games aired on the Fox network since 2017, but now it'll be streaming a full slate of games. The exclusive deal will require Amazon to invest heavily in NFL production like camera operators, commentators, motion graphics, etc.
Amazon, along with other technology companies, has never negotiated such an exciting content deal for this long even though it's been streaming NFL games for four years now. That said, the company's exclusive agreement is going to matter to curd-cotters, even more so now that streaming has spiked in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.