Los Angeles Chargers tight end Gerald Everett (7) during a 26-yard reception in the fourth quarter of an NFL game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Kansas City Chiefs on September 15, 2022 at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium of Kansas City, MO.
Scott Winters | Sportswire icon | Getty Images
Amazon’s first broadcast of “Thursday Night Football” drew a record number of new Prime sign-ups during a three-hour period, more than during similar periods on Prime Day or other big shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday Monday, an executive said in a note. seen by CNBC.
Last week’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers was the first of 15 games that Amazon will broadcast as part of a deal with the National Football League. Amazon is spending about $1 billion a year to exclusively stream Thursday Night Football through 2023, CNBC previously reported.
“By all accounts, Thursday Night Football on Prime Video was a resounding success,” Jay Marine, Amazon’s global head of sports, wrote in a memo to staff late Monday.
Official viewership numbers for the game have yet to be released by Nielsen. Marine said Amazon’s measurement “shows that the audience numbers exceeded all of our audience expectations.”
Amazon is betting big on sports streaming in hopes of boosting its Prime membership. The Prime membership program, which charges $139 a year for a host of benefits, including free shipping, now has about 200 million subscribers worldwide. Amazon has said there are 80 million active Prime Video households in the US
It has beefed up its Prime Video content in other ways to hook viewers and new subscribers. The company recently released its long-awaited “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” series, which is derived from the appendices of JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” books. Amazon said the first episode of the series, which set a record for being the most expensive show ever made, attracted more than 25 million viewers worldwide in its first day.
I WILL SEE: Amazon’s big NFL debut and first-week ratings gains
