The NFL Renews Amazon’s Coverage Of ‘Thursday Night Football’ Through 2022
Amazon and the NFL have extended their previous three-season partnership for another three years. The extended partnership gives Amazon Prime and Twitch the rights to stream eleven Thursday Night Football (TNF)games through the 2022 season.
While this particular part of the deal remains unchanged, there is one significant change with Amazon’s new contract with the NFL. The streaming platform will also now have the exclusive rights to Saturday regular-season games that will be played in the second half of the season. The only caveat is Amazon is required to sell the rights to the Saturday games to the local over-the-air stations to both markets playing in the game. National outlets will not have any coverage.
Amazon’s three-year deal extends the contract the NFL has with Fox for TNF. Amazon will simulcast the Fox broadcast that also plays on the NFL Network and Fox Deportes. In addition the Amazon feed will also offer interactive features including X-Ray, a feature on Amazon that helps viewers learn more about what they are watching, and Next Gen Stats.
“As our relationship has expanded, Amazon has become a trusted and valued partner of the NFL,” stated Brian Rolapp, the league’s chief media and business officer. “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.”
The fact the NFL is giving the exclusive rights to regular-season games to a non-television network is extremely rare, although essential as streaming platforms continue to grow in popularity as opposed to their linear television counterparts.
“We know Prime members and the Twitch community around the world love the NFL,” stated Marie Donoghue, Amazon’s VP of global sports video. “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.”
Although the exact rights fee has yet to be disclosed, CNBC reported Amazon would pay more than $65 million a season, making the three-year total more than $200 million.
The NFL and Amazon’s partnership encompasses other content including the original NFL Films docuseries “All or Nothing.” Additionally, the NFL uses Amazon Web Services for its official cloud and artificial intelligence provider for the Next Gen stats platform.
