Understanding Amazon’s Drive for Black Friday NFL Rights
Amazon and the NFL recently turned heads with the announcement that the retailer will be adding to its NFL “Thursday Night Football” telecast in 2023 with a coverage of a new game slot to be played on Black Friday.
This is well timed for the behemoth online retailer. Not only will there be a game played on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, but it will allow Amazon to potentially advertise for Cyber Monday, which is online retail’s busiest day of the year.
This is a play taken from the Amazon sports playbook that has been tried and tested in a high-value economy. In 2018, Amazon bought the rights to two rounds of Premier League fixtures in England — the 10 games occurring in the first round of midweek fixtures at the start of December and the 10 games taking place across Boxing Day (historically when the biggest sales of the year begin in the U.K. and the cultural equivalent of Black Friday). These rights were renewed in 2021 to last until 2025.
By making all of the first midweek games of December available on Prime Video, Amazon made sure that any EPL fan would have a game they’d want to see. This is atypical for EPL broadcast rights, which in the U.K. are subject to a nationwide 3 p.m. TV and streaming blackout for Saturday games, and means that any and all EPL fans would tune in and of course be served ads for things to buy for Christmas — and, in the case of the Boxing Day games, things to buy in the sales.
This strategy was also likely part of the appeal to grab exclusive rights to "Thursday Night Football," which includes games every week in the lead-up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Amazon-only games are reportedly averaging at least 10 million viewers a week and, with pre-Christmas games on Dec. 1 between the Buffalo Bills and the New England Patriots and Dec. 8 between the Las Vegas Raiders and L.A. Rams, can expect to see higher audiences exposed to ads for the deals available for the holidays on Amazon.
It won’t be any surprise to see Amazon enter the bidding for the new set of NBA rights, with the old deal set to expire in 2025. VIP+ is not suggesting Amazon will look to carry full season rights but instead look for some games and packages for the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas in order to reach a wider audience to expose to ads.
Amazon already has a small number of MLB games, thanks to its stake in YES Network and the New York Yankees, as well as the high-profile NFL games. Adding more leagues and competitions airing around key consumer dates in the calendar is to be expected.
