Thursday Night Football Comes to Amazon

For the first time, Amazon has secured exclusive digital rights to stream 10 Thursday Night Football (TNF) games across devices via the Amazon Prime Video application.A TNF page within amazon.com lists Amazon's live streaming schedule and lets visitors sign up for email alerts. It also offers fan shop links to T-shirts, hats, sweatshirts and miscellaneous tailgating supplies. The page additionally plugs All or Nothing, an original Amazon series produced by NFL Films that is in its second season.A home page carousel ad linked to the destination in early August, announcing the live streaming would kick off on Sept. 28 in the games' fourth week, when the Chicago Bears face the Green Bay Packers. In advance of the game, Amazon Video also posted an irreverent video promoting the game's availability on the service to its YouTube account. (See below.) Paid search ads support, linking to the TNF page.According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon paid $50 million for the TNF streaming rights — $40 million more than what Twitter paid for the same rights during the previous season. Reports suggested that Amazon outbid not only Twitter, but also Facebook and YouTube for the rights. The move also gives Amazon a leg up on streaming video giant Netflix, which doesn’t offer live sports coverage.Amazon plans to recoup its costs by selling NFL ad packages including 30-second spots for as much as $2.8 million, according to Reuters. Twitter reportedly charged media buyers $2 million to $8 million for packages including highlights and in-game spots. However, Twitter also streamed the games for free on its social media platform, while Amazon is only making them available to Prime members who pay its $99 annual fee.CBS and NBC reportedly paid $225 million apiece to each broadcast five of the games. (They also will all be simulcast on NFL Network.) TNF is presented by Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light.Amazon won't get the ninth or 12th week games, but its rights also include an 11th Christmas Day game."Our focus is on bringing customers the best premium video programming, when and how they want to watch it. Streaming Thursday Night Football on Prime Video is a great step for us toward that vision, and offers tremendous new value for Prime members around the world," said Jeff Blackburn, Amazon's senior vice president, business development & entertainment, in a media release. "And we're thrilled to extend our ongoing content relationship with the NFL."Amazon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring content for its growing subscription video business. It also owns video game streaming site Twitch, which it acquired in 2014 for $970 million.Editor's Note: Amazon's first live stream of NFL Thursday Night Football got 372,000 viewers, topping Twitter's average of 266,000 during last season's games, according to The Drum.

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