As the NFL regular season concludes, Amazon has wrapped up its second year of exclusive streaming for Thursday Night Football (TNF) on Prime Video. The 15 games in 2023 achieved an average of 11.86 million viewers, marking a 24% increase from Amazon’s debut TNF season in 2022, which averaged 9.58 million viewers.
While these figures remain below the 2021 season’s average of 16.2 million viewers on Fox and the NFL Network, Amazon’s growth is notable. The streaming numbers, however, still fall short of traditional broadcast networks, such as Fox, CBS, and NBC, which routinely attract 20 million-plus viewers for NFL games on Sundays and Mondays.
Amazon’s attempt to change how Nielsen measures its streaming numbers, incorporating first-party streaming data into audience measurements, faced resistance and was not officially adopted by Nielsen. Nevertheless, with the inclusion of first-party streaming data, Amazon reported an average of 12.95 million viewers for TNF games during the 2023 season. This reporting style is currently under review by the Media Rating Council, with potential changes expected for the next season.
While streaming is often associated with a younger audience, the key 18-34 demographic for TNF showed a 14% increase in the 2023 season from 2022, with an average of 2.4 million viewers. Despite the growth, this demographic’s rate of increase was smaller than the overall audience, indicating a trend toward a more diverse viewership.
In other NFL news, Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper was fined $300,000 by the league for “unacceptable conduct” after he was caught on video tossing a drink toward a Jacksonville Jaguars fan during a game. The fine amounts to a minimal percentage of Tepper’s $20.6 billion fortune, highlighting the challenges of penalizing wealthy team owners.
The newly formed United Football League (UFL) has officially emerged from the merger of the XFL and USFL, aiming to establish a stable spring football league. The eight-team league splits evenly from its predecessors, with four teams from each league forming the USFL Conference and XFL Conference. Former XFL President and CEO Russ Brandon will lead the business operations, while Daryl Johnston will continue as the president of football operations.
The UFL maintains media partnerships with Fox and ESPN from the USFL and XFL, respectively. The league’s deliberate effort to draw equally from both leagues extends to coaching staff and key decisions. The UFL seeks to avoid the fate of previous failed spring football leagues by combining strengths from the XFL and USFL and is scheduled to kick off on March 30, 2024.