Thursday Night Football Gets New Kickoff From Amazon Prime Video

Posted by Reinaldo Massengill on Sunday, August 11, 2024

In 2022, Amazon Prime Video was eager to get the word out that NFL fans had a new way to watch football games on Thursday night. This year, the streamer wants to sweeten the deal.

In a new ad set to debut Thursday evening during NBC’s telecast of the NFL’s first game this season, Prime Video features Marshawn Lynch and Charissa Thompson, among others, in what seems to be a grand control room that turns on the power for the debut of this season’s “TNF.”

The spot will have wide play. Amazon intends to air it across broadcast, cable, social, digital and outdoor, says Stacey Rosenson, head of U.S. Sports Marketing for Amazon Prime Video. “It will be relatively hard to miss,” she says. Later in the season, Prime Video will start to run ads that focus specifically on some of the talent who have prominent roles in its “TNF” gamecasts, she says.

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Launch of the commercial campaign suggests that Amazon sees more opportunity to lure crowds to its streaming options, despite its massive efforts last year that involved touting “TNF” on delivery trucks and boxes as well as the home page of its giant e-commerce portal. “We definitely feel like we an continue to grow,: says Rosenson. “We were really happy with our first season, but we definitely want to grow our audience this season.”

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The streaming wars have largely been fought on the backs of dazzling new movies and scripted series like “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Orange Is The New Black” or “The Mandalorian.” Increasingly, however, sports are being drawn into the battle. Disney’s Hulu has been showing ads touting that hub as a place for live sports, a message that takes on new relevance given its parent company’s carriage battle with Charter Communications that has removed ESPN from its programming tiers. Warner Bros. Discovery is expected over the next few weeks to introduce a new sports category on its Max streaming site under the “Bleacher Report” brand. Apple has secured rights in recent months to show MLB and MLS matches.

NBCUniversal intends to hit Thursday night’s game with an ad for its Peacock streaming hub that taps NBA great Allen Iverson to talk about how many different live sports can be found.

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