It’s only the first week but it looks like Amazon’s media deal with the National Football League is paying off.
Prime Video broadcasted its first “Thursday Night Football” game last week as part of an exclusive 11-year deal worth $1 billion annually.
The game, which was a dandy, saw the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Los Angeles Chargers, fetched a record number of Prime subscriptions according to a staff note from Amazon’s VP in charge of Prime Video, Jay Marine:
- The game brought in more Prime sign-ups over a three-hour period than any other day — including Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and Prime Day. The cost for Amazon Prime is $139 per year. Marine added that the game drew a record primetime audience for the service in the U.S.
Amazon was targeting 12.5 million viewers per game. “Thursday Night Football” averaged13.2 million viewers in its last season on Fox.
“While we’re still waiting for official Nielsen ratings, our measurement shows that the audience numbers exceeded all of our expectations for viewership,” Marine said.
Amazon has a three-year deal with Nielsen, which marks the first time Nielsen will include ratings from a streaming service in its weekly television-viewing report.
“By every measure, ‘Thursday Night Football’ on Prime Video was a resounding success,” Marine added.
