The NFL signed a massive TV deal on Thursday that is worth more than $100 billion. Starting in 2023, Amazon Prime Video will be the home of 15 Thursday Night Football games. This is the first time a streaming service will have an exclusive full season package.
During the 2020-2021 NFL season, Amazon streamed the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers game. That game alone brought in an estimated 11.2 million viewers and an average minute audience of 4.8 million, which was the largest set of viewers for an NFL game that was streamed.
Amazon has been partnering with the NFL since 2017 and has streamed 11 Thursday Night Football games. Amazon will now have the rights to the entire package that was recently owned by Fox.
Looking to predict NFL playoff Scenarios? Try our NFL Playoff Predictor for real-time simulations and stay ahead of the game!
With Amazon receiving all 15 Thursday Night Football games, let's take a look at how NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Robert Kraft feel about Amazon's new deal.
How do Roger Goodell and Robert Kraft feel about Amazon receiving NFL Thursday Night Football games?
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is also the chairman of the NFL's media committee. Robert Kraft had this to say to the media after the announcement of Amazon receiving all the Thursday Night Football games.
“Over the last five years we have started the migration to streaming. This is another large step in this direction,” said Kraft.
“Our fans want this option and understand streaming is the future. We have created a unique hybrid of viewing options and streaming. This should provide a smooth transition to the future of content distribution,” concluded the Patriots owner.
The NFL Commissioner had nothing but great things to say about Amazon taking over the Thursday Night Football games.
“This provides our fans with greater access. We want to provide our games on more platforms than ever before,” said Roger Goodell.
The NFL may have struck gold by adding Amazon as the home of Thursday Night Football. Streaming has become extremely popular over the last few years and a lot of NFL fans use streaming platforms like Hulu and Amazon to watch television.
This could potentially be the start of something new for the NFL. If viewers pour in for Thursday Night Football, we could potentially see more games streamed on Amazon in the future. Thursday Night Football has not faired well when it comes to viewers in recent times, losing 1.3 million views from 2019 to 2020.
The NFL is hoping that streaming the games on Amazon will bring back the number of viewers that the NFL had during the 2018 and 2019 seasons. During the 2018 season, Thursday Night Football had 14.9 million viewers, while in 2019 Thursday Night Football had 15.4 million viewers. It will be interesting to see if Amazon can surpass both of these numbers in 2023.