Amazon Prime has brought new zest to the words “prime time” when it comes to viewing the livestream of Thursday Night Football for fans all over in the US. After going through a run with Twitter last year, the NFL’s Thursday night prime-time games are making a move over to Amazon Prime, as announced by the NFL earlier this week. Both Amazon Prime and the NFL have come to an agreement to partner on a deal when it comes to the rights of sending a livestream of up to 10 Thursday Night Football games.
The NFL certainly does not shy away from making social platforms a viable method of viewing games -- as they have inked a deal with Snapchat before the 2016 season kicked off. To have livestreaming of selected prime time games would certainly be a bold move, and will build on the league’s past decisions of indulging in technology to make the viewing of high profile games more accessible to the masses across numerous formats and devices. Remember Yahoo!'s one-game run with the London contest a couple of years ago? How about having up to 10-games on Twitter in 2016? Amazon will see a similar schedule this year, and Twitter's streaming of TNF enabled fans will then be able to experience the game right smack on their very own mobile devices, while using the social platform to communicate and bounce ideas with one another.
Brian Rolapp, Chief Media and Business Officer for the NFL, shared, "We are continually looking for ways to deliver our games to fans wherever they watch, whether on television or on digital platforms and we are thrilled to bring Thursday Night Football to Amazon. As has been the case with all our streaming initiatives, we look forward to continuing to innovate with our partners as we learn the best ways to serve our fans both this season and into the future."
Jeff Blackburn, Senior Vice President, Business Development Entertainment, Amazon, was quipped as saying, "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. And we're thrilled to extend our ongoing content relationship with the NFL -- the gold standard for sports entertainment -- on behalf of our Prime customers."
However, with livestream on Amazon Prime, users will have to pay to watch Thursday Night Football. Do take note that the games will be available only to Amazon Prime members, with those numbering approximately 60 million to date. Amazon executives would certainly be rubbing their hands in glee, knowing that this will be a huge draw for them against their rivals, Netflix and Hulu.
Not only that, all of the 10 TNF matchups will be available via live TV, as this package is split between CBS, NBC and NFL Network. At the very least there is now another option if you would like to catch your Thursday Night Football!
