Amazon brings Thursday Night Football into the future with streaming TV
November 23, 2021
On October 28, one of the most anticipated matchups of the 2021 NFL season came down to the final seconds, with the Cardinals driving down the length of the field in pursuit of a game-winning touchdown. Instead, the Packers pulled out a clutch Thursday Night Football win with Rasul Douglas intercepting a pass from Cardinals QB Kyler Murray in the end zone for a 24-21 victory. And for many football fans, this late-game drama was unfolding on streaming TV.
This Week 8 matchup between the Packers and Cardinals had an average audience of 20.4 million across all services, including Prime Video and FOX, making it the third-most-viewed Thursday Night Football game since 2018. This was also the highest average minute audience (AMA) of all time for a Thursday Night Football game on Prime Video and Twitch—which was up more than 70 percent over the 2020 season average.1 And beginning in 2022, sports fans will be gathering to watch Thursday Night Football games like these streaming exclusively on Prime Video.
For the next 11 years, the NFL weekend will officially start with Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, with 15 regular games and one preseason game per year. Prime members can connect from anywhere through their TVs, mobile devices, and desktops across Fire TV, Prime Video, Amazon, and Twitch. They can cheer on their favorite teams and stay close to the action with features like X-Ray and Next Gen Stats for a streaming experience unlike any other. The Prime Video production of Thursday Night Football will include new pregame, halftime, postgame, and in-game features including highlights, original content, and more.
A shift in sports viewing from linear to streaming TV
Amazon’s historic Thursday Night Football debut comes at a time when more viewers are migrating from linear TV to streaming TV. In a recent forecast of digital sports viewership by eMarketer, almost one in four US live sports viewers watched via digital channels in 2020.2 US digital live sports viewership is projected to grow by 14% from 2020 to 2021.3
“With live sports viewing through digital channels growing at an accelerated pace, Thursday Night Football on Prime Video and Twitch gives customers more of the content they want to stream,” says Danielle Carney, Amazon Ads Head of NFL Sales. “At Amazon Ads, we look forward to helping brands connect with these engaged sports viewers at scale through innovative ad experiences that drive measurable business results.”
Connecting with NFL audiences with Streaming TV ads
Advertisers can use Amazon’s Streaming TV ads to reach audiences that tune into Thursday Night Football on Prime Video. In addition to live sports, our Streaming TV ads appear alongside content across IMDb TV, Twitch, top-tier network and broadcaster apps, and Fire TV’s curated News app. This advertising solution helps brands engage audiences at scale, as Amazon Streaming TV ads and Twitch jointly reach an unduplicated monthly audience of 135 million viewers across the US.4
With Streaming TV ads, advertisers can effectively connect with viewing audiences based on Amazon’s first-party streaming and shopping signals. They can also use creative remarketing to continue the conversation with audiences who have tuned into Amazon’s ad-supported streaming content through display campaigns. Remarketing can help advertisers reach relevant audiences with more efficiency and drive high-impact full-funnel campaign results. In fact, we’ve found that campaigns can generate a +28% average increase in detail page views and +25% increase in purchase rate when audiences are exposed to both Streaming TV and display ads with creative remarketing.5
To better understand the impact of their investments, advertisers can analyze campaign performance with Amazon Ads’ suite of full-funnel measurement solutions. These first- and third-party solutions provide brands with deeper insights around brand discovery, purchase propensity, and loyalty, as well as metrics like brand reach, brand lift, and sales.
In a new era of Thursday Night Football exclusively on streaming TV, Amazon Ads can be part of a brand’s playbook to reach millions of NFL fans. We’ll see you on the field in 2022.
Learn more about how to put your brand in the spotlight with Amazon Ads.
In keeping with the NFL's long-standing commitment to make its games available on free, over-the-air television, each game will also be televised in the participating teams’ home marketplaces.
1 Amazon internal, 2021
2 eMarketer, May 2020
3 eMarketer, May 2020
4 Amazon internal, 2020
5 Amazon internal, 2020