Amazon kicks off year two of ‘Thursday Night Football’

Amazon Prime Video wants to make Thursday nights even better this fall.

As the Indianapolis Colts face off against the Philadelphia Eagles tonight, Prime Video is officially kicking off the second year of being the exclusive home for NFL’s Thursday Night Football. After TNF’s Prime Video debut last year—which featured new branding and new ad formats—the company is looking to build on last year’s momentum and find more room for improvements.

“We really took the time to listen to our customers to hear what they wanted, and what [we could] bring to the marketplace that would be different within the NFL,” Danielle Carney, Amazon Ad’s head of NFL sales, told Marketing Brew at the Stream TV Advertising Summit Tuesday.

The ad stuff: During this year’s upfronts, Prime Video rolled out new ad formats, like interactive ads and audience-based creative targeting that lets advertisers show different ads to different viewers. The latter in particular generated “a lot of traction and excitement” during negotiations, Carney said, and Amazon is pacing “above our expectations at this point in the ad cycle,” Jay Marine, Prime Video’s VP, global head of sports, said during a call with reporters this week. At last year’s upfronts, Amazon charged between $475,000 to $525,000 per 30-second in-game spot, according to Sportico.

Other trends in the market, including a slowdown in scripted content due to the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes, are working in Thursday Night Football’s favor, Marine said.

“Because of some of the strikes and what’s happening in broader entertainment, more ad dollars are flowing to live sports, and there's nothing more premium than the NFL,”  Marine said. “And I would say we’re getting more than our share.”

Last season stats: Last year, Thursday Night Football averaged around 11 million viewers a game, Marine said, below the average of 16.4 million when the franchise aired on Fox Sports and slightly under the 12.5 million viewers Amazon reportedly told advertisers to expect. Among those viewers, around 17% of Thursday Night Football viewers last year never watched Sunday Night Football, Carney said.

On average, Thursday Night Football audiences were eight years younger than on other NFL broadcasters, Carney said, something that she emphasized was particularly attractive to advertisers. Viewers spent an average of 84 minutes watching Thursday Night Football programming.

Add to cart: This fall, Amazon will also spend Black Friday with fans for the NFL’s first-ever Black Friday game, available exclusively on Prime Video; Carney told Marketing Brew to expect features including live, talent-led commercials, branded content, and exclusive retail deals.

“We definitely want this to create somewhat of a new fan tradition, and a new shopping tradition as well,” she said.