The last NFL edition of Amazon’s All or Nothing docuseries followed the Philadelphia Eagles in 2019, and debuted in 2020. Last year’s NFL season of All or Nothing was cancelled due to the pandemic, though a Tottenham Hotspur edition premiered in the summer and Amazon announced seasons with Juventus (please dedicate an entire episode to the failure of The Super League, Amazon) and the Toronto Maple Leafs earlier this year.
However, news has been scarce about the next NFL team that will be featured. Sure, there’s still plenty of time for an announcement before training camp, let alone Week 1, but there haven’t even been any murmurs about who could be featured.
It turns out that Amazon and the NFL, despite their cushy, recently expanded relationship, are at loggerheads about All or Nothing, mainly due to the show’s timing, per the Sports Business Journal.
The dilemma is mostly in the timing of the show, which was always intended to give fans an inside look at a team during the season, as opposed to the higher-profile training camp series “Hard Knocks” on HBO. “All or Nothing” viewership underwhelmed, likely because it aired in the offseason.
However, the obvious solution to that — accelerating production to air episodes during the season — is a nonstarter for coaches already reluctant to allow cameras into sensitive team functions. NFL officials emphasize the show is not dead, and the pandemic is the primary reason there was no production in 2020.
This wasn’t an issue for either the Manchester City or Tottenham editions. The City edition, which covered the 2017-18 season, premiered after the 2018-19 Premier League season began. The Spurs edition, covering the 2019-20 season, premiered just before the start of the current Premier League season.
Release dates for the five NFL seasons have been all over the map, which doesn’t help fans. The first two seasons, following the Cardinals and Rams, premiered at the end of June. Season three’s Cowboys-centric series premiered at the end of April. The Panthers year, season four, premiered in July. The final season to date, covering the Eagles, debuted in February. The summer premiere dates are awful, given that they’re airing six-plus months after the previous season ended. I’m getting geared up for the next season, why would I want to deep dive on the past season, especially with Hard Knocks (typically, early August) about to premiere?
If premiering All or Nothing during the season is a non-starter for the featured team, getting it out in February should be the priority for Amazon. Because if you can’t get it out in that post-Super Bowl window, you’re looking at the possibility of All or Nothing’s release getting swallowed up by NFL Draft hype and then inevitably training camp and the next season (rather than the prior season).
I do think we’ll get some sort of clarity about All or Nothing sometime in the next four or so months. However, the consistent downside of covering a season as it goes on is that teams are never going to be open to that footage being released while the season is still going on – and there’s little that can be done about that.
