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Thursday Night Football: Amazon, YouTube, Twitter bidding for rights

By Patrick Schmidt

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - FEBRUARY 04: Quarterback Nick Foles #9 of the Philadelphia Eagles raises the Vince Lombardi Trophy after defeating the New England Patriots, 41-33, in Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium on February 4, 2018 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - FEBRUARY 04: Quarterback Nick Foles #9 of the Philadelphia Eagles raises the Vince Lombardi Trophy after defeating the New England Patriots, 41-33, in Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium on February 4, 2018 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /
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Amazon is in the running for the streaming rights to Thursday Night Football but faces a bit more competition this time around after winning the rights last year.

Thursday Night Football is on the move to Fox this coming season and the streaming rights could be on the move for the second year in a row as well. Last year was the first for Amazon to hold the rights after they paid $50 million to stream 10 Thursday Night Football games on Amazon Video, which was free for Prime members. Twitter had the rights the year prior, the first year that the NFL sold the streaming rights to their games.

Twitter and Amazon are back in the running for the 2018 streaming rights and joined by YouTube and Verizon. Facebook was pursuing the NFL before recently dropping out of consideration.

Bloomberg reports the NFL is looking for a bit more security this year after bouncing around the last two years and could lock up the streaming rights for as much as five years to the winning bidder.

The NFL reported a 2.5 percent growth in Thursday Night Football as a result of the games being streamed on Prime Video. The games were able to be viewed in 224 countries across the world and resulted in 18.4 million viewers, according to Variety. And Amazon reported more viewers than Twitter by 17 percent in the average-minute metric. That measures viewership for those who tuned in for at least 30 seconds of the games.

Based on the success of last season, I have to think Amazon will make every effort to re-up and keep the rights for next season, and possibly for the next five years if the NFL is set on having some long-term security in place.

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I think YouTube will be eager to get their hands on the NFL and Verizon is an interesting option considering they already stream games. Twitter could be itching to get their hands back on it, after losing to Amazon last time around.

Bottom line is the company that commits to the most years at the highest dollar will secure the rights. That’s how Amazon won the rights last year and that philosophy could result in the NFL staying on Amazon for many Thursdays down the road.

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