By Amy Tennery
NEW YORK (Reuters) –NFL-Amazon: The National Football League (NFL) announced its first-ever “Black Friday” game will stream on Amazon Prime Video next year, building on the relationship between the league and the streaming giant.
The NFL already has a stranglehold on Thanksgiving broadcasts, with its annual lineup of Thursday games as common as turkey on the table in households across the United States for the annual American holiday.
It is now staking its claim on the unofficial annual “Black Friday” shopping promotion, when bargain-seekers hunt for holiday deals at big-box stores and online.
The move comes after the NFL made Amazon its exclusive partner for “Thursday Night Football” games in a long-term media deal last year.
“Thanksgiving is synonymous with football and we’re excited to give our fans another day of NFL action during this holiday weekend,” NFL Media Chief Operating Officer Hans Schroeder said in a statement.
“Amazon is uniquely positioned to partner with us for this game as Black Friday is one of the most important days of the year for their business.”
The game will air Nov. 24, 2023, at 3 p.m. ET (1900 GMT).
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters the league had not made a commitment to continue to the broadcast beyond 2023 but hinted there could be more “Black Friday” games to come.
“We’ll announce plans as we go,” he said. “Certainly we don’t do things normally for one year.”
NFL owners converged in New York on Monday for their quarterly meeting, where players’ health and safety were expected to be among a wide variety of topics discussed.
