The new era of Thursday Night Football will embrace online sports betting, as DraftKings Inc. has secured a prominent position in the NFL’s evolving approach to the broadcast of its games.
Boston-based DraftKings announced on Tuesday that Amazon.com Inc. had selected the digital gaming company as a sponsor for Thursday Night Football, which will be streamed exclusively via Amazon's Prime Video service in the United States.
“The multi-year collaboration between DraftKings and Amazon will deliver fans engaging pregame content and unique betting offers every Thursday throughout the NFL season, beginning September 15, 2022,” a press release noted.
A bold new world
Those betting offers will include same-game parlays, which will be found on DraftKings’ online sportsbook app. That will be in addition to TNF using DraftKings’ odds and betting insights during the broadcast, the first of which will revolve around a matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with DraftKings to bring fans more insights and excitement as part of the TNF viewing experience,” said Danielle Carney, head of NFL Sales for Amazon Ads, in the release. “DraftKings content will contribute to lively pregame discussions, fan engagement and, perhaps, some bold predictions from our on-air talent.”
The National Football League and Amazon announced their new TNF collaboration last year, a decade-long deal that handed the massive tech company the near-exclusive rights to screen Thursday night games in the United States.
It marked a major change in how NFL matchups are broadcast in the country, as the league moved one of its primetime games of the week to an online streaming service rather than its usual home on TV.
“The deal makes Prime Video the first streaming service to air a season-long exclusive national broadcast package from the NFL, and includes 15 regular-season games and one preseason game per year,” Amazon has noted.
Jump on the betting bandwagon
Although Thursday games will still be on TV in the local markets of the teams actually playing, the NFL's partnership with Amazon reflects the cord-cutting phenomenon, as fans increasingly opt to drop traditional television options and utilize streaming services instead.
What’s more, the NFL’s changing media strategy comes as legal online sports betting has spread across the U.S., with DraftKings one of the leading proponents of that expansion.
Securing such a prominent position for itself during such a crucial time of year for sportsbook operators could give publicly traded DraftKings a boost, especially as investors have grown more and more interested in profitability.
“The NFL season is the most active time of year for our customers, so collaborating with one of the world's leading technology brands in order to offer engaging content to viewers of TNF on Prime Video is a tremendous opportunity for DraftKings,” said Stephanie Sherman, chief marketing officer for DraftKings, in the release. “Prime Video is an innovator in live content and we both have a similar focus on constantly improving our customers’ experiences.”
