In 2023, Amazon completely takes over Thursday Night Football. With games on the Prime streaming service, and with Amazon already making multiple options available for the viewing of its 10-times-per-season TNF simulcast, a revolution could be coming regarding the manner in which viewers consume game content.
As explained by Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, Amazon is embracing the concept of “your game, your way” when envisioning its production of NFL games on Thursdays.
Beyond hiring its own team for play-by-play and commentary, Amazon could (as explained by Marchand) incorporate local radio feeds. It also could opt for an annoucerless stream of the game.
NBC once televised an annoucerless game. On a December Saturday in 1980, the Jets beat the Dolphins in a game that had no one talking. It was a one-time event.
It could happen weekly in 2023, if Amazon decides to use a stream with broadcast ambient sounds and graphics but no broadcaster audio.
The beauty of a streaming-only platform is that Amazon can do whatever it wants, setting up as many alternate streams and rolling the total traffic up into one number. Given that Amazon has a path to a playoff game based on the total viewership of its Thursday night games, there’s a major premium to be placed on originality, options, and overall buzz. The more people it can bring to the platform, the better for Amazon -- and the better for the NFL, which consciously has swapped revenue for eyeballs in its placement of a prime-time game.
