Why it matters: Amazon has locked up long-term rights to exclusively distribute Thursday Night Football games, the National Football League has announced. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t announced although sources reportedly familiar with the matter told CNBC that Amazon is paying about $1 billion per year for the exclusive rights.
The new agreement begins with the 2023 season and runs through the 2033 season. It’s the NFL’s first exclusive national broadcast package with a digital streaming service, and will include the rights to broadcast 15 Thursday Night Football games as well as one pre-season game per year.
Each Thursday night game will also be televised over-the-air in the participating teams’ home markets.
The two sides first partnered to bring Thursday Night Football to Amazon Prime Video during the 2017 season. A year earlier, the NFL worked with Twitter to distribute select games during the regular season.
Amazon said it also intends to deliver new pre-game, half-time and post-game shows, and will keep producing interactive features like Next Gen Stats and X-Ray for a more customizable viewing experience.
The NFL also announced updated media agreements with existing partners including CBS, ESPN, NBC, FOX and the NFL Network. Per CNBC sources, the collective value of the new agreements is more than $100 billion.
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