Amazon Prime Video will be the exclusive national “broadcaster” of the NFL’s Dec. 26 Week 16 game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals.
The Saturday game pitting the NFC West Division rivals, on the last weekend of the NFL regular season, could be meaningful, with the 49ers trying to claw back into Wild Card playoff contention after string of costly injuries, and the Cardinals competing to win the division. The game will not be shown on national broadcast or cable, but it will be streamed on mobile platforms through the NFL’s deal with Verizon, and it will be shown via broadcast in the teams’ local markets.
Amazon also announced that it will stream the Jan. 10 AFC Wild Card playoff game, which will be broadcast nationally on CBS.
Amazon is in the first year of a three-year extension signed in April with the league that will keep the NFL’s Thursday Night Football franchise on the digital platform through the 2022 season. Terms of that deal weren’t disclosed, but Amazon is reportedly paying "more" than the $65 million per season it ponied up for the 2018 and 2019 TNF campaigns.
The league’s final “Thursday night” game this season, set for Christmas week, will actually be a Friday Christmas Day matchup between playoff two other NFC playoff contenders, Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints.
Amazon has been using its Twitch live-streaming platform to stream live sporting events.
“We’re ready to deliver the gift of football for Prime members this holiday season with a week-long slate of original content and in-depth analysis on Prime Video and Twitch, culminating in back-to-back days of live NFL action on Dec. 25 and 26,” said Marie Donoghue, VP of global sports video at Amazon, in a statement.
