In year one of its Thursday Night Football deal, Amazon raised the bar for streaming sports, showing that primetime level productions could live exclusively on, well, Prime Video.
Last year, Amazon improved on its first outing with a nearly 25% bump in viewership before taking home a second straight Sports Emmy for outstanding interactive experience.
Now in year three of an 11-year tie-up, the $1.8 trillion tech giant is preparing for its first exclusive playoff broadcast and injecting more computer-based thinking into its weekly shows.
Amazon debuted “Defensive Alerts,” a feature that predicted which players might be most likely to come on a surprise blitz, on its stats-heavy Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats altcast in 2023. After garnering strong reviews, those pop-ups will now be included in every main TNF feed, while a new set of AI features branded “Prime Insights” appear on the experimental telecasts.
Before the snap, the Prime Vision feed in 2024 will identify which part of the field offenses are likely to attack based on formations and tendencies. The screen will also note whether a defense is playing a zone or man-to-man scheme in real time, using live player tracking data along with a machine learning model.
Amazon is also bringing back automated open receiver indicators and four-down territory markers as parts of its offering.
“We’re uniquely positioned to accelerate the integration of AI into our live events, given the in-house expertise we’re able to collaborate with and the next-generation computer power that AWS provides,” Prime Video director of live sports production Jared Stacy said in a statement. “We consistently push the teams to use AI and computer vision to deliver enhancements that will be meaningful to fans.”
The TNF slate kicks off with a divisional matchup between the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins this Thursday. Prime Video will also air a second Black Friday game this year, this time featuring Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs as they host the Las Vegas Raiders.
Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit will be back in the booth for Amazon with Kaylee Hartung serving as sideline reporter. Analytics expert Sam Schwartzstein often chimes in on the Prime Vision broadcast.
In the past, Amazon has offered additional altcasts as well, though as of Tuesday, a Spanish-language version was the only other promoted feed for the season debut.
Games are still aired on traditional TV in teams’ local markets, while fans can also watch Thursday Night Football, including the Prime Vision version, for free on the Amazon-owned Twitch platform.
