In its first month of live streaming live NFL games, the audience delivery of Thursday Night Football (TNF) has surprised many; exceeding the audience delivery from one year ago and is the most viewed program of the day. Amazon
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has guaranteed advertisers an average audience of 12.5 million for TNF. In addition, Amazon’s coverage has been popular with younger viewers, an important target for many NFL advertisers. Based on the audience delivery in the first month, Amazon should be able to meet the guarantee, again, surprising many.

With Nielsen measuring Amazon Prime’s audience of TNF (including viewing from Twitch, broadcast stations in the participating teams home market and out-of-home viewing), it allows for comparisons to previous televised TNF games as well as television ratings. Amazon is ponying up $1 billion per annum over the next 11 seasons to live stream TNF games. This season they are charging advertisers a reported $500,000 for a 30-second ad.

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Some industry analysts projected the audience for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football coverage would fall way short of the guarantee. Adding credence to that expectation was the audience of their only pre-season game barely registered one million viewers, well below the audience delivery from NFL games on broadcast networks. Hence, there was some concern about the audience delivery heading into their first regular season game (Los Angeles Chargers at Kansas City Chiefs) on September 15. The inaugural game however averaged 13.03 million viewers with 11.87 million coming from Amazon.

The strong audience points out the ratings behemoth live NFL games have become even on a streaming platform. The first TNF game of the year was by far the most watched program of the evening. The top- rated prime time program on broadcast television for the evening was the CBS sitcom Young Sheldon which averaged 3.5 million viewers. In addition, Amazon’s audience delivery had exceeded the first game of TNF last season on the NFL Network, home market stations and digital platforms. That game averaged 8.84 million viewers.

Helping to boost the ratings were the number of new sign-ups to Prime Video with the start of Thursday Night Football. Jay Marine, the vice president of Amazon’s Prime Video told Front Office Sports, the game brought more new subscriptions to the streaming service than any other three-hour period including Prime Day, Black Friday or Cyber Monday. A one-year subscription costs $139. Its estimated Prime Video has about 80 million users in the U.S.

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Amazon’s next TNF game was streamed on September 22 (Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns) and averaged 11.03 million viewers across all video sources. Despite the decline, TNF had doubled the most watched prime time show on broadcast TV Law & Order: SVU which generated an average audience of 5.5 million. Once again, Amazon’s average audience was greater than corresponding TNF games (on NFL Network, local stations and digital platforms) which averaged 7.96 million viewers.

For Amazon’s third week of coverage (Miami Dolphins at Cincinnati Bengals), the e-commerce giant delivered an audience of 13.4 million viewers across all platforms (11.7 million on Amazon Prime), its highest to date. Once again, the TNF was the most viewed program of the evening. In addition, the live streamed game averaged more viewers than the TNF game of 2021 which averaged 8.57 million viewers on the NFL Network, etc.

For Amazon’s fourth TNF game the audience delivery dropped. The primary reason was a mistake-filled lackluster game between the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos which dragged into overtime. The game had no touchdowns, twelve punts, four interceptions and ten quarterback sacks. For the game Amazon Prime averaged 9.7 million viewers, dropping below eleven million for the first time. It also marked the first time Amazon’s audience delivery was lower than the corresponding TNF game which moved to Fox averaging 14.8 million viewers. The Amazon game however, delivered more 18-34 viewers than the previous week and was the most watched program of the evening. It points out that viewers have little tolerance in watching a bad game whether it’s on television or live streamed

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Nonetheless, despite the falloff, through the first four games, Thursday Night Football on Amazon has been averaging 11% more viewers than one year ago.

With younger viewers all but abandoning linear television for streaming, Amazon’s TNF has delivered a strong young adult audience. According to Sportico, as the median age of the linear primetime television viewer gets older and older and oftentimes exceeds 60, to date, the median age of TNF in Amazon has been a youthful 46. Last year, the media age for TNF over the first month of the season was 54. In addition, the median age of TNF is seven years younger when compared to live NFL games on broadcast and cable television this season.

Moreover, Amazon’s TNF is also averaging a strong adult 18-34 audience. According to Nielsen, more than 20% of live streamed games are watched by young adults. This age group has wide appeal with many marketers targeting the hard to reach 18-34 demographic. It also helps the NFL reach out to young adults. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodall notes, “We believe that we’re going to be able to help build an audience for Amazon Prime, but also Amazon Prime is going to build an audience for the NFL.”

The NFL is also off to a strong start with other media partners. CBS said that its NFL ratings are off to their best start since 2010. Also, NBC said four of their first five games all averaged 20+ million viewers, making it their strongest start since 2015.

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Tonight, Amazon starts its second month of coverage when the Washington Commanders visit the Chicago Bears.