NFL on Prime Video

• 1. Introduction

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  NFL on Prime Video is the brand Amazon uses for its National Football League broadcasts, and it began with a price tag that made the industry take notice. In April 2017, Amazon paid $50 million for streaming rights to 10 Thursday Night Football games. That number was five times what Twitter had paid the year before for a similar package. The purchase raised a set of questions that took years to answer. Could a subscription streaming service hold a live audience the way a broadcast network could? What would it take to own the NFL outright, not just rent a corner of it? And what did it mean for fans when the game they expected to find on television was suddenly behind a paywall?

• 2. The $50 Million Experiment

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  Amazon's 2017 streams came with features no traditional NFL broadcast had attempted. Alongside the main English feed, Amazon produced alternate commentary in Spanish, Portuguese, and a secondary English presentation aimed at international viewers unfamiliar with American football. Soccer commentators Ross Dyer and Tommy Smyth called that feed. Tiki Barber and Curtis Stone hosted the pre-show. Access required a paid Prime subscription.

  For 2018 and 2019, Amazon renewed its digital rights and dropped the Prime requirement for Twitch viewers, opening the streams at no charge on its live platform. Twitch feeds included chat rooms, football-themed emotes, an interactive extension, and co-streams with prominent personalities. Amazon Fire devices offered X-Ray integration for real-time statistics during play. On the Prime Video side, alongside Spanish and British English options, Amazon debuted an alternate commentary team: ESPN anchor Hannah Storm and NFL Network chief correspondent Andrea Kremer. They were the first all-female commentary pair in NFL history.

• 3. One Exclusive Game, One Historical Marker

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  On the 29th of April 2020, Amazon extended its digital rights through the 2022 season, and buried in that renewal was something new. Amazon acquired exclusive international rights to a late-season regular-season game produced by CBS. On the 26th of December 2020, the San Francisco 49ers faced the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. The game aired on Prime Video, Twitch, Verizon, the NFL app, and local stations including KNTV in San Francisco and KSAZ-TV in Phoenix. Nationally, no broadcast television network carried it. It averaged 4.8 million viewers, the first NFL game to hold that distinction. The exclusive format did not return in 2021.

  The 2020 renewal also introduced new programming layers. Amazon replaced the British feed with a Scout's Feed featuring extended analysis from Bucky Brooks and Daniel Jeremiah. Twitch gained NFL Next Live with viewer interactivity. Prime Video added NFL Next, hosted by Chris Long, Kay Adams, Andrew Hawkins, and James Koh, airing live and on-demand on Tuesday nights.

• 4. Winning the Package

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  In March 2021, Amazon paid approximately $1 billion per year for exclusive Thursday Night Football rights running from 2023 through 2033. It was the first time a streaming service had secured an exclusive NFL game package. Regular-season Thursday night games would increase from 12 to 15 per year, and a single preseason game was added annually. Amazon took over production entirely, rather than carrying another network's feed. The deal included pre-game, halftime, and post-game programming, in-game highlights, and original NFL content.

  A few months after the March announcement, the league moved the start date to 2022, making the deal 11 years rather than 10. Because Prime Video requires a subscription, the NFL attached a local television mandate: every Thursday Night Football game must air on an over-the-air station in each competing team's home market. When the Patriots and Steelers met in a 2023 Thursday night game, WFXT carried it in Boston and WPXI carried it in Pittsburgh. The annual NFL Kickoff Game and the Thanksgiving primetime game, both on Thursdays, sit outside the TNF package and air nationally on NBC.

• 5. A Wider Calendar

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  Beginning with the 2023 season, Prime Video added a Black Friday game, the Friday after Thanksgiving. Like standard Thursday Night Football, it required local carriage in both teams' markets. The 2023 Black Friday game aired on WNYW in New York City and on WFOR-TV in Miami.

  Starting with the 2025 season, when Christmas Day falls on a Thursday, Prime Video airs its traditional TNF game that night. Christmas landed on a Thursday in 2025, placing Prime Video's game after Netflix's Christmas doubleheader. The 2025 Christmas night game aired on KMGH in Denver and on KSHB-TV in Kansas City, with the standard local simulcast requirement in both markets. Playoff access grew alongside the regular-season calendar. In October 2020, Amazon acquired rights to stream one NFC Wild Card game as a simulcast of CBS. That game aired on the 10th of January 2021, Chicago Bears against the New Orleans Saints, and it was simultaneously available on Nickelodeon. A second simulcast followed on the 16th of January 2022: San Francisco 49ers against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium, again alongside CBS and Nickelodeon. In 2024, Amazon signed a multi-year deal for one Wild Card game per season. The January 2025 Wild Card game aired on WPXI in Pittsburgh and WMAR-TV in Baltimore.

• 6. Who Calls the Games

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  Al Michaels has handled play-by-play for Prime Video since 2022, with Kirk Herbstreit alongside him on color commentary. Kaylee Hartung reports from the sideline, Terry McAulay analyzes rules, and Charissa Thompson hosts the pregame show. Tony Gonzalez, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Andrew Whitworth, and Richard Sherman serve as pregame analysts. Marshawn Lynch and Taylor Rooks contribute, with chef David Chang added in 2023 and Sam Schwartzstein joining as analytics expert the same year. Ian Rapoport became an insider in 2025.

  The earlier years produced a broader and more experimental roster. LeBron James, Maverick Carter, and Paul Rivera appeared as alternate broadcast announcers for select games in 2022 and 2023. Dude Perfect held that role across the same period. Hannah Storm called play-by-play from 2018 through 2021, including her historically notable pairing with Andrea Kremer. The UK English feed, carried by Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth from 2017 through 2019, traces back to Amazon's original ambition to bring the game to audiences who had never seen American football before. That instinct, present in the very first $50 million bid, shaped what NFL on Prime Video eventually became.