Thursday Night Football might have gotten a new television broadcasting partner starting with the 2018 season, but the streaming rights will stay right where they are. The NFL announced yesterday evening that Thursday Night Football’s streaming service will once again come through Amazon, via their Prime Video service.
The two parties agreed to a two-year pact, which is the first multi-year deal that the league has participated in for the streaming rights of Thursday Night Football. They began experimenting with Yahoo broadcasting a game in 2015. Twitter owned the rights in 2016 for $10 million, and Amazon quintupled that figure with a $50 million deal last season.
The online giant evidently was pretty happy with the arrangement and elected to renew the pairing for another two seasons, running through 2019. Their streaming broadcasts will also include “interactive features”.
The press release also mentions that the NFL and Amazon will “also collaborate on additional NFL content opportunities and enhanced fan viewing experiences, including making the games available on Twitch’s interactive social video service”.
Amazon Prime boasts over 100 million members and is available in over 200 countries. The broadcasts last season reportedly generated more than 10 million streaming viewers last season, and the parties hope that that expands even further in in 2018 and beyond.
“Amazon was a tremendous partner for Thursday Night Football in 2017 and as we continue our mission of delivering NFL games to fans whether they watch on television or on digital platforms, we are excited to work with them again for the next two seasons”, the league’s Chief Media and Business Officer said.
While financial terms of the new deal have not initially surfaced as of the time of this writing, it is not apparent that the figure from last season’s deal has been improved upon. The league is still figuratively dipping its toes into the streaming market, but one would imagine that this is an area with a tremendous amount of growth potential.
Earlier this offseason, the NFL and FOX agreed on a new five-year broadcast deal for Thursday Night Football on television. FOX will broadcast 11 Thursday Night Football games per season and will pay a handsome come for that amount, reportedly up to as much as $660 million per year.
The Pittsburgh Steelers will host the Carolina Panthers on Thursday Night Football this season on November 8 for their Week 10 game. This comes a week after playing the Baltimore Ravens and is followed by a Sunday Night Football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Both of those games are on the road.
