Amazon Prime members are getting NFL perks a year early. The league announced that Amazon is becoming the exclusive rights holder of Thursday Night Football beginning in the 2022 NFL season. The new deal pushes the rights transition from FOX to Amazon up one season after Amazon was supposed to take over the broadcast duties in 2023.
“We look forward to bringing Thursday Night Football exclusively to Prime members in 2022, a year earlier than previously announced,” said Marie Donoghue, vice president of Global Sports Video at Amazon. “This expedited deal is an immediate differentiator for us as a service, as it gives Prime members exclusive access to the most popular sport in the United States.”
Amazon came into the NFL universe in 2017 as part of a tri-cast distribution model during the 2017 season, initially with CBS and NBC, then with FOX starting in 2018. Under the new deal, Amazon will stream one game each week to its subscribers, recently announced to have surpassed 200 million in number.
“These new media deals will provide our fans even greater access to the games they love. We’re proud to grow our partnerships with the most innovative media companies in the market,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said when the league announced their new media deals this past March. “Along with our recently completed labor agreement with the NFLPA, these distribution agreements bring an unprecedented era of stability to the League and will permit us to continue to grow and improve our game.”
The upcoming season is the final time FOX broadcasts Thursday Night Football under the new media deal. They will still carry a heavy slate of Sunday action, including America’s Game of the Week, the most-watched show on television for the last 12 seasons.
Despite the changes with the Amazon transition, the NFL is still allowing fans without Amazon Prime to watch the games on local stations.