E-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc AMZN is among the companies with streaming segments that bid aggressively on media rights to sports leagues and contests.
Amazon is one of several companies with rights to National Football League games for the 2023 season and saw record viewership to kick off the season.
What Happened: The 2023 NFL season includes Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football match-ups on a weekly basis, offering several primetime games for fans and media partners.
Amazon airs the “Thursday Night Football” games, which started with a matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and Philadelphia Eagles.
The contest between the Vikings and Eagles was watched by 15.05 million people, according to data from SportsMediaWatch.
This makes the first Amazon TNF game of the season the most watched ever since Amazon began airing the games. Viewership was up 16% from Amazon’s first Thursday Night Football game in the 2022 season. The viewership also beat a previous Thursday Night Football record under Amazon of 13.03 million.
Along with setting Amazon records, the Eagles and Vikings contest is the most-watched season premiere of Thursday Night Football across any network since 2016 (15.4 million). Thursday Night Football matches previously aired on NFL Network from 2017 through 2021.
Of the 15.05 million total, 1.1 million watched over-the-air in Philadelphia and 656,000 watched over-the-air in the Minneapolis/St. Paul market. The remaining 13.3 million watched through Prime Video, a subscription video service from Amazon.
Related Link: NFL Week 1 Sports Betting Report: 56% YOY Surge In Sportsbooks Logins, 1.1M New Customers
Why It’s Important: Amazon saw strong year-over-year gains to kick off the 2023 season across several age demographics.
The broadcast also saw strong overall ratings in the 18-34 age demographic compared to other NFL broadcasters, which could make Amazon a strong target for advertisers.
Along with airing Thursday Night Football games, Amazon will air the first-ever Black Friday football game the day after Thanksgiving during the 2023 season.
On Friday, Nov. 24, 2023, Amazon will broadcast the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets game at 3 p.m. ET for free for fans on the Amazon website or the Prime Video app.
While the game will be aired for free, it could see Amazon increase its advertising for sign-ups of Prime for the rest of the 2023 season or for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals during an already eventful holiday weekend.
Amazon paid a reported $1 billion for the Thursday Night Football rights and saw strong initial results in 2022. The e-commerce company credited Thursday Night Football leading to Amazon Prime sign-ups.
AMZN Price Action: Amazon shares are down 0.57% to $139.59 on Monday versus a 52-week trading range of $81.43 to $145.86.
Read Next: Exclusive: Darren Rovell Says ESPN Should Be Worried About Streaming Companies Entering Sports
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