SEATTLE — The National Football League and Amazon announced Wednesday they have reached a multi-year agreement to renew their exclusive partnership to deliver live digital streams of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video and gamer platform Twitch.
Eleven Thursday Night Football games broadcast by Fox will be available for streaming by Amazon Prime members in more than 200 countries and territories on the Prime Video and Twitch sites and apps across connected smart devices, mobile phones, tablets and PCs. This includes Canada.
The games broadcast by Fox will also be distributed in Spanish on Fox Deportes and are expected to be simulcast on NFL Network, continuing the NFL’s “tri-cast” model of broadcast (Fox), cable (NFL Network, Fox Deportes), and digital (Prime Video and Twitch) distribution, says the press release. In Canada, it becomes more of a quad-cast as TSN also has a rights deal in Canada to show TNF, meaning the mid-week games can be actually consumed six different ways by Canadian fans (TSN, Fox, NFL Network, Twitch, Amazon’s stream of the Fox broadcasters and Amazon’s stream with its own announcers. This is more options than just about any other TV show on offer in Canada).
In addition, Amazon Prime Video and Twitch have secured the global rights to exclusively stream one additional regular season NFL game, which will be played on a Saturday in the second half of the 2020 NFL regular season. In keeping with the NFL’s long-standing commitment to make its games available on free, over-the-air television, the game will also be televised in the participating teams’ home markets, says the news release.
“We are thrilled to renew our Thursday Night Football deal with the NFL, and are excited to expand our relationship to include exclusive global streaming rights to an additional regular season game in 2020,” said Marie Donoghue, vice-president of global sports video at Amazon, in the release. “We know Prime members and the Twitch community around the world love the NFL, and we remain committed to giving them the best and most customizable streaming experience possible, with a broad selection of premium content available at their fingertips.”
