NEW YORK—The rights package for the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” is getting an early delivery to Amazon Prime Video, as the streaming service will become the exclusive home for Thursday night games starting with the 2022 season.
Amazon Prime Video had been granted the rights to “Thursday Night Football” as part of the NFL’s new 10-year broadcast rights deal it signed in March. That deal will officially begin with the 2023 NFL season. This latest announcement from the NFL will bring “Thursday Night Football” to Amazon Prime Video a year earlier than expected.
Fox has been the broadcast home of “Thursday Night Football” since 2018. The 2021 NFL season will be the final one where the broadcaster carries the games—Amazon Prime Video simultaneously streams these broadcasts.
Fox, as per the new rights agreement, will still be the home of the NFC package of Sunday afternoon games.
Even though Amazon Prime Video is the exclusive rights holder for “Thursday Night Football,” the NFL has said that the games will be carried free over-the-air in the broadcast markets for the teams participating in the weekly matchup.
The NFL was the first major U.S. sports league to announce this kind of exclusive deal with a digital platform, but it is not the only one. The NHL is going to have some games on both ESPN+ and HBO Max as a result of its new broadcast deals with ESPN and Turner Sports, respectively. MLB also broadcasts a handful of games on YouTube TV throughout its season.
