Amazon Is Winning Its Bet On NFL Rights: A Look At The Numbers, Taylor Swift Upside

Amazon.com Inc AMZN continues to land highly coveted rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games for the 2023 season.

What Happened: Along with airing Thursday Night Football games during the 2023 NFL season, Amazon will also be home to the first-ever Black Friday NFL game, with the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets facing off on Nov. 24 at 3 p.m. ET.

This game adds to the existing lineup of three NFL games that air annually on Thanksgiving Day.

The Black Friday game will air on Prime Video for subscribers and also be available for free on Amazon’s website, which could mean more viewers than normal.

While the game is over a month away, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant unveiled to Adweek its first slate of advertising partners for the highly anticipated games: Columbia Sportswear, Bose and Carnival Cruises.

The Black Friday game will feature twice as many interactive video ads compared to Amazon’s normal Thursday Night Football coverage, Amazon head of NFL ads Danielle Carney told Adweek.

Interactive ads, which have a clickable overlay, have had 20x more interactions than ads with QR codes, according to the company.

“We’re already seeing the impact. And so I think there’s a lot more to learn there and understand, but it makes total sense,” Carney said. “And this is where we really win with the NFL and Amazon, because we have the ability to close that loop for our partners, share those insights and go deeper.”

Black Friday ads from Amazon and others during its NFL coverage could include the ability to add items to their online shopping cart without leaving the game.

“We’re seeing great adoption from CPG and grocery, some of the nontraditional NFL guys that you might see.”

Amazon is also preparing for a potential increase in advertising and viewership demand for this week’s Thursday Night Football game, which features the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos.

Fans are also waiting to see whether Taylor Swift shows up to the game to watch Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce again. The timing of the game comes the night before Swift’s “Eras Tour” concert film hits over 8,500 theaters worldwide thanks to a partnership signed with AMC Entertainment Holdings AMC.

Related Link: Media Companies Ready To Cash In On Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce Love Story 

Why It’s Important: Amazon reported record viewership for its first Thursday Night Football game of the season with 15.05 million people watching the game between the Minnesota Vikings and Philadelphia Eagles. The game saw 16% more viewers than the company’s first TNF game from the 2022 season. The previous TNF record for Amazon was 13.03 million viewers.

The company’s second Thursday Night Football game of the season had 13.92 million viewers, making it the second most-watched NFL game on Prime Video, according to Front Office Sports.

Amazon is also bringing younger fans to the NFL. The median age of Thursday Night Football viewers is 47 — seven years younger than other NFL broadcasts.

Through the first four weeks of the NFL season, which includes three Amazon Thursday Night Football games, average viewership for NFL games is up 9% year-over-year at 18.8 million viewers. Amazon is leading the way with 14% year-over-year growth (14.2 million viewers), according to Media Post.

Amazon paid a reported $1 billion for the Thursday Night Football rights and saw strong initial results in 2022. The media rights lead to more Amazon Prime sign-ups.

AMZN Price Action: Amazon shares are down 2% to $125.96 on Monday versus a 52-week trading range of $81.43 to $145.86.

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