Thursday Night Football continues to grow in year three for Amazon.
The Cleveland Browns’ upset win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday helped Amazon’s Prime Video to another strong audience. Per Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, the game averaged 13.72 million viewers, the seventh time this season that Amazon has eclipsed the 13 million viewer threshold. That’s a notable superlative because Amazon only hit that mark six times combined during the first two seasons it has exclusively aired the midweek package.
Much of the game was played in heavy snow, creating some stunning visuals for Amazon. Combine that with a back-and-forth fourth quarter, and the historic nature of the Browns-Steelers rivalry, and Amazon was able to secure it’s fourth-largest audience of the year. Notably, the game trails three other divisional matchups; Cowboys-Giants (16.22 million viewers), Bills-Dolphins (14.96 million viewers), and Commanders-Eagles (14.42 million viewers).
Amazon’s Thursday Night Football package is now averaging 13.25 million viewers over 11 telecasts, up 5% versus the first 11 games last season. Versus two years ago, the first season in which Amazon exclusively aired Thursday Night Football, viewership is up a much more significant 36%.
The NFL’s first streaming-only package is slowly returning to levels that Fox would receive in the final year it aired Thursday Night Football on its broadcast channel. In 2021, those games would draw audiences of 12 million on the low end, and up to 20 million on the high end.
Familiarity with the Prime Video platform certainly plays a role in the stronger viewership, but quality of matchup could also be a key factor. Eight of 11 Thursday Night Football games this season have featured divisional games. Only three of the first 11 games last season featured divisional foes.
Three of the four remaining games on Amazon’s schedule are also divisional rivalries. That should help propel the streamer to its most-watched season yet.
