The numbers are in.
Cowboys-Seahawks ‘Thursday Night Football’ clash was most-streamed NFL game in history
By
Richard Deitsch and The Athletic Staff
The “Thursday Night Football” clash between the
Dallas Cowboys and the
Seattle Seahawks averaged 15.26 million viewers, making it the most-watched game ever on Prime Video and the most-streamed
NFL game in history, according to a release shared by Amazon.
At its peak, 17.76 million viewers tuned into the game, which the Cowboys
went on to win 41-35. The first half featured 41 combined points and the drama of the high-scoring affair
peaked with a Dallas fourth-quarterback comeback.
Amazon Prime Video Sports just sent over a 10,000-word press release (TBH: it was a slightly shorter) but the key numbers:
Cowboys-Seahawks averaged 15.26 million viewers, most-watched game ever on Prime Video — and most-streamed NFL game in history.
The previous highest-streamed game came in Week 2, when the
Philadelphia Eagles defeated the
Minnesota Vikings in front of an average of 15.05 million viewers.
Making sense of those numbers
Though Amazon had worked with the NFL Network and Fox on “Thursday Night Football” since 2017, the real question was how would the company do when it became an exclusive partner in 2022 — the first time a streaming service received a full package of NFL games exclusively. We are now getting our answer. The Cowboys are always going to draw — and this game was very competitive — but 15.26 million viewers is a fantastic non-Sunday viewership number. Through 11 weeks, TNF is averaging 12.58 million total viewers, excluding the Black Friday game, an increase of 29 percent versus last season’s 11-game average on Prime Video (9.74 million). Customers are clearly becoming more comfortable viewing NFL games via a streaming product.
Amazon spent a lot of money on its NFL production (which was probably wise given the $1 billion annual rights fee) and it shows in the product. Whether you like or dislike the on-air people is always going to be subjective (same thing as liking or hating me as a writer). But on a week to week basis, Amazon offers a proof of concept of NFL production that matches what we have seen with the networks (outside of a few minor hiccups). Per Sports Media Watch: Five TNF games this season have averaged more viewers than last year’s high, 13.03 million for Amazon’s debut telecast (
Chargers-Chiefs). That’s very impressive.