NFL Rights Deals: Amazon Prime Video Becomes First Streaming Service to Land Exclusive NFL Package

Amazon and the NFL made history today by announcing a 10-year agreement to exclusively broadcast 15 Thursday Night Football games and one preseason game per year on Prime Video in the U.S. The Prime Video deal begins in 2023 and is the NFL’s first exclusive national broadcast package with a digital streaming service. The number of regular-season games included in the Thursday Night Football package is increasing from 11 to 15, with all games airing on Prime Video as part of a Prime membership.

“NFL games are the most-watched live programming in the U.S.,” says Mike Hopkins, SVP, Prime Video and Amazon Studios, “and this unprecedented Thursday Night Football package gives tens of millions of new and existing Prime members exclusive access to must-watch live football on Prime Video. NFL fans from across the country will enjoy a premium viewing experience with Thursday Night Football, as well as access to a broad selection of content, including award-winning Amazon Originals available on Prime Video.”

Says NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, “Thursday Night Football will be our first-ever digital package, and we are thrilled to exclusively partner with Amazon to bring our games to more fans on more platforms. NFL football drives passionate viewers, and Amazon will enable us to continue to grow our fanbase in innovative and compelling ways.”

Prime Video will deliver new pre/postgame and halftime shows and will continue to offer fan-favorite interactive features like X-Ray and Next Gen Stats, providing a more customizable viewing experience. As part of the new deal, Prime Video also secured rights to a weekly slate of original NFL programming and expanded rights to in-game highlights for all NFL matchups. Prime Video and the NFL will continue to collaborate on exclusive NFL content and enhanced fan viewing experiences around Thursday Night Football, with more information to come ahead of the first game in 2023.

Today’s announcement is a continuation of an expanding relationship between the NFL and Amazon, which first distributed a simulcast of Thursday Night Football during the 2017 season. In April 2020, Amazon and the NFL expanded the existing 11-game Thursday Night Football package on Prime Video to include one exclusive regular-season game per year — the first of which, between the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals, was played on Dec. 26. The matchup drew an estimated 11.2 million total viewers and delivered the highest digital average-minute audience ever for an NFL regular-season game. Additionally, since 2017, the NFL has used Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its official cloud and machine-learning provider for Next Gen Stats, which provides real-time location, speed, and acceleration data for every player during every play on every inch of the field.

In keeping with the NFL’s longstanding commitment to making its games available on free, over-the-air television, each game will also be televised in the participating teams’ home markets.