NFL Playoffs 2025: Prime Video Makes Its NFL Playoff Debut; Newly-Implemented AI Feature, Pressure Alerts, Joins Graphics Lineup
Steelers-Ravens matchup on Saturday night caps Prime Video's third season as an NFL broadcaster
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Prime Video takes another significant step in its journey to prominence as a live sports broadcaster when the streamer delivers its first NFL Playoff game on Saturday night and, boy, is it a doozy. The Prime Video team is on-site at M&T Bank Stadium for an AFC Wild Card game between two of the league’s great rivals: the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens (7:30 p.m. ET).
Prime Video will stream its first NFL Playoff game on Saturday night.
As in the regular season, Prime Video users can access numerous feeds of the live game broadcast, including the primary telecast, a Spanish broadcast, and the stats-driven Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats.
“We could not be more proud of our partnership with the NFL, our viewership growth and the innovations we’ve initiated for fans and brands over these first three seasons ofTNF on Prime,” says Jay Marine, Global Head of Sports and Ads, Prime Video. “Our production and tech teams are best-in-class, and with AWS and our outstanding team of data scientists, we’re pioneering the use of AI to advance the presentation of live sports in exciting ways, and we are just getting started.”
One the latest innovations from the Prime Vision alternate feed that has “graduated” to the main game telecast is Pressure Alerts, an AWS AI-powered model that tracks defenders attacking the offensive backfield during live action and highlights those that are in position to disrupt the play.
Pressure Alerts made its Prime Video main telecast debut on December 19 during the Los Angeles Chargers’ win over the Denver Broncos. In this example, the graphic feature predicted in real-time the likelihood that Broncos linebacker Drew Sanders would cause Chargers’ quarterback Justin Herbert trouble. Just 2.4 seconds after the snap, Sanders had sacked Herbert.
ALERT ALERT! 🚨
The @TNFPrimeVision w/@NextGenStats NEW Pressure Alert feature powered by AI identified linebacker Drew Sanders as the pass rusher most likely to create pressure from the A-gap. Sanders got to Herbert for the sack just 2.4 seconds after the snap. pic.twitter.com/oxkKTQaW1h
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) December 20, 2024
This first NFL Playoff game in its history serves as an exclamation point for Prime Video on what has been a successful third season of Thursday Night Football (TNF). In addition to innovations on the live production, the streamer landed some juicy games and saw the benefit of the overall continued adoption of live streaming to set viewership records.
TNF registered double-digit, year-over-year audience growth, notching an +11% average viewership increase among total viewers over the previous season (13.20 million vs. 11.86 million). For context, that’s a sizable +38% leap over TNF on Prime’s 2022 inaugural season average (9.58 million).
When including Black Friday Football into the NFL on Prime regular season average, the viewership increase over the 2023 season rises to +13% (13.22 million vs. 11.71 million). Per Nielsen, the 2024 season of TNF on Prime was watched by 91.10 million unique U.S. viewers, expanding its reach by nearly 20 million since Prime Video’s inaugural 2022 season (71.97 million).
Prime Video’s live game coverage of the AFC Wild Card Game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens will stream on Saturday beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET.
