Associated Press4:47 PM GMT2 Minute Read
Prime Video will stream an NFL game for free on Black Friday, Amazon announced on Tuesday.
The 2023 season will be the first time the league has scheduled a game for the day after Thanksgiving. The teams for the 3:00pm ET game on November 24 will be announced later.
“It’s such an unusual day because so many people are off, so it really is a unique opportunity to introduce our show to all of our fans,” said Prime Video Vice President Jay Marine.
With the additional game, Prime Video will get 16 regular season games for the 2023 season. These will air from weeks 2 through 17. Prime Video will also air a preseason game.
Prime Video has put some of its sports content before the paywall before, but for its international customers. It co-owns the rights to the French Open tennis tournament and last year gave everyone in France access to the quarter-final match between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
Last season marked the first year that Prime Video was the exclusive carrier of Thursday Night Football. According to Nielsen figures, the 15-game bundle averaged 9.58 million viewers on Prime Video, while Amazon’s first-party viewership averaged 11.3 million.
It was the first time Nielsen tracked and included ratings from a streaming service.
Even with the streaming-only games, “Thursday Night Football” was the most-watched show 13 out of 15 times. One of the times it was hit was Game 5 of the World Series.
Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit and Kaylee Hartung are expected to return as the broadcast team for Prime Video. After Fred Gaudelli retired at the end of last season, there will be a new games producer.
With seven key broadcast windows to place games — three on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, late Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, and Monday night — Thanksgiving week will likely see no teams.