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Prime Video executives aren’t prepared to guarantee a ratings bonanza with the first NFL game on Black Friday. They mainly hope it succeeds in seeding a new annual pop culture event on the day after Thanksgiving.
“We’ll see how it goes, but our expectation and the NFL’s expectation is that this becomes an annual tradition,” said Jay Marine, VP of Prime Video and Global Head of Sports, during a media conference call.
The on-field matchup between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins looked much better on paper when it was scheduled last spring. Since new star quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered an injury on the season’s opening night in September, the Jets have hit turbulence and the Dolphins come in as the heavy favorite.
Regardless of how competitive Friday’s game winds up, however, Amazon comes in with considerable ratings mojo in the second year of Prime Video’s exclusive carriage of Thursday Night Football. In 2023 to date, through 10 telecasts, the weekly game is averaging 12.27 million total viewers, up a striking 26% from last season’s average at the same point in the season.
Asked about Amazon’s expectation for viewership, Marine said he “wouldn’t want to speculate. It’s a new window.” Nevertheless, he continued, “We’re optimistic because people are home. … I expect it to grow year after year.” The company and league are approaching Friday as the start of “building a decade-plus-long franchise,” Marine said.
Hans Schroeder, EVP and COO of the NFL, said Year 2 of the league’s 11-year relationship with Prime Video “felt right” as a moment to look to deepen ties. Amazon reportedly paid $100 million for rights to shift from Thursday to the following day, which also happens to be a typical high point in traffic for the e-commerce giant’s main website. (CBS, NBC and Fox retain rights to the three Thanksgiving Day games.)
After “looking across the calendar at where there may be areas to expand or add additional tentpoles and touchpoints, Black Friday was one that quickly hit our radar,” Schroeder recalled. Amazon’s DNA as a company suggested it could help the league create an event at the “intersection of commerce and the game.” In terms of blending shopping and sports, he added, “who better” than Amazon?
Marine said the Black Friday opportunity “is a big deal for us.” … We’re putting everything behind this. We’re going to embrace the day.” Shopping discounts will be offered via QR codes popping up throughout the broadcast, and an exclusive concert by Garth Brooks will follow the game, which starts at 3 p.m. ET at Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. Unlike the Thursday night slate, Friday’s game will be accessible to non-Prime members, which could goose its numbers.
Schroeder said Amazon’s overall capabilities, which have expanded through years of investment in technology along with broadcast rights, “got us comfortable to make the decision” to play on Black Friday. The league landed on the 3 p.m. start after looking at other slots, including prime time, but deciding to avoid overlap with high school and college football on Friday night and instead carve out a place when most adults and school-age children are home for the day.
The nature of streaming has enabled Prime Video viewers for NFL games to average about 8 years younger than linear audiences. It also offers opportunities to heighten engagement. “In an OTT streaming world, there are things you can do differently than a traditional, one-way broadcast because we know everyone logged in, so they’re connected,” he said. Along with ad targeting, the digital opportunities include alternate telecasts, data-driven analytics and product integrations.
Thanksgiving Day has for decades seen games hosted by the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys. In contrast, Schroeder said for the foreseeable future the league will try to rotate Black Friday around the country, as with the Super Bowl or the NFL Draft.
As far as how Amazon will determine whether its Black Friday gambit worked, Marine said, “It’s a success if our customers say, ‘Wow, that was cool. I can’t wait for them to do that every year. That was fun.’”
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