Amazon’s Thursday NFL broadcast attracts record numbers to Prime

Amazon.com Inc.’s broadcast of “Thursday Night Football” attracted a record number of new Prime subscriptions for a three-hour period, even beating out events like Cyber Monday and Prime Day, according to an email reviewed by Bloomberg.

“By every measure, ‘Thursday Night Football’ on Prime Video was a resounding success,” Jay Marine, Amazon’s vice president in charge of the streaming service, said in the email.

Amazon has exclusive rights to broadcast Thursday night NFL games for 11 years, a $13 billion bet that sports coverage can broaden the appeal of Prime, which offers both streaming video and lower shipping rates for e-commerce goods. The first game also drew a record prime-time audience to Prime Video, according to Marine’s email.

“While we’re still waiting for official Nielsen ratings, our measurement shows that the audience numbers exceeded all of our expectations for viewership,” he said.

This is a big year for Amazon’s streaming service. In addition to getting exclusive rights to Thursday night NFL matches, the company launched a new series based on the popular “Lord of the Rings” fantasy books. Bloomberg