What started as something of an experiment just two years ago has exploded into one of the tentpole days of the year in sports broadcasting.

Amazon is readying a whopping 15 hours of live sports for Black Friday on its Prime Video streaming service—massively expanding from initial notion in 2023 to air a live NFL game on the unofficial post-Thanksgiving holiday. This year’s morning-to-night lineup includes:

• The revival of golf’s “Skins Game”: The made-for-TV showcase, appearing for the first time since 2008, will bring together Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry, Xander Schauffele, and Keegan Bradley in a $4 million competition. 
• A better-than-expected NFL game between the Bears and Eagles: Amazon always had high hopes for the contest when it was announced in May, given it involves two of the top five U.S. media markets and the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles. Since then, though, the Bears have risen to the top of the NFC North division, giving the game plenty of extra sizzle and postseason implications. The NFL and Amazon also recently finalized plans to show this game globally for free. The 3 p.m. ET start will again take advantage of a loophole in the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.
• An NBA Cup doubleheader: The first of the two basketball games will involve the Bucks and Knicks, while the nightcap will be another showcase with the Mavericks and Lakers. That latter game will be the first between the two since Dallas fired GM Nico Harrison earlier this month, with his much-criticized February trade of star Luka Dončić to Los Angeles helping set the stage for that move. 

“What started as just an idea with the NFL has blown up into something much bigger, and it’s been really cool to see that build year after year,” Amazon VP of global live sports production Jared Stacy tells Front Office Sports. 

Like the past two years, Amazon will heavily integrate the online retail part of its business into the sports broadcasts, particularly through a “Shop the Game” feature that will allow viewers to access Black Friday sales through their TV remote. 

“In a lot of ways, what we’re doing on Black Friday is a full activation of the entire company,” Stacy says. 

Counting Eyeballs

The initial viewership results from Amazon’s Black Friday efforts have been somewhat hit-and-miss, with a 2023 NFL game between the Dolphins and Jets averaging just 9.61 million viewers, and last year’s Raiders-Chiefs contest then rising by 41% to an average of 13.51 million. 

Amazon, however, has much greater hopes this time around for several reasons. First, the company is certainly aiming for a greater pull throughout the day from sports fans. Second, the NFL is in the midst of a leaguewide boost in viewership, with the 6% lift to 17.7 million viewers per game representing its best mark at this point of the season since 2015. Amazon is squarely part of that with Thursday Night Football, posting a 12% rise so far this season to 14.78 million viewers per game. Third, the NBA is also off to a strong ratings start to its season, with Amazon a core part of that, too.

Lastly, Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel measurement process has provided a meaningful lift to most live sports, and Amazon was an early adopter of the enhanced methodology. The Black Friday lineup will be shown without a Prime Video subscription needed. 

“The opportunity to extend the day like this is a huge thing, and we’re looking forward to creating a new set of traditions,” Stacy says. 

The NFL’s late-afternoon Thanksgiving Day game between the Chiefs and Cowboys is poised to make history, but the early-window contest between the Packers and Lions is positioned for its own potentially record-setting audience—thanks to a strategic pivot by Fox. 

The network will be simulcasting the 1 p.m. ET holiday game between the NFC North division rivals on its free Tubi streaming service. Tubi normally does not show Fox’s live sports programming, with that typically reserved in streaming for Fox’s new Fox One platform. Fox, however, does utilize Tubi for some major sports events, and the Thanksgiving NFL broadcast certainly qualifies. 

Before the August debut of Fox One, Tubi was also used to enlarge the distribution of Super Bowl LIX, and it proved critical in that game setting a new viewership standard in U.S. television history. Tubi delivered an average audience of 13.6 million for the Eagles’ rout of the Chiefs, representing nearly 11% of the event’s overall average audience of 127.7 million. 

A similar boost could help Fox set a new audience record for an early-window Thanksgiving NFL game. Last year’s comparable game between the Bears and Lions, shown on CBS, averaged 37.5 million viewers to set the current mark for that broadcast slot. That total also nearly matched the average of 38.8 million for the late-afternoon Thanksgiving game last year between the Giants and Cowboys. 

As most other streaming services have not only shifted to a subscription model but also elevated their pricing significantly in recent months, Tubi remains an industry outlier on multiple fronts. It’s entirely advertiser-supported, and it also recently reached profitability. 

“Our verticals in live news, and live sports in particular, are really the beneficiaries of the broad reach that we have,” said Fox executive chair and CEO Lachlan Murdoch in a recent earnings call. 

Fox’s move for Thanksgiving arrives as CBS has lofty aspirations of its own for the 4:30 p.m. ET broadcast of the Chiefs and Cowboys, the NFL’s two most-watched teams. That game could set a league record for regular-season viewership and even approach an average audience of 50 million. 

The companies interested in buying all or part of TNT Sports parent company Warner Bros. Discovery are going to be working through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. 

Less than a week after receiving initial, non-binding bids from CBS Sports parent company Paramount, Netflix, and NBC Sports parent company Comcast, WBD is now looking for more. It has detailed to the trio of bidders that it is looking for elevated, second-round offers, according to industry sources and multiple reports. 

WBD has also placed a Monday deadline to submit those enhanced bids, which is set to create a scramble over the holiday among those suitors to prepare themselves for this next round.

Paramount, which just completed its $8 billion merger with Skydance Media this past summer, is seeking all of WBD, while Netflix and Comcast are more interested in WBD’s film and television studios and the HBO Max streaming service. 

The heightened push from WBD further signals its intent to complete the high-stakes deliberation by year’s end, if not sooner. Those purchase offers are also competing with parallel consideration by WBD to separate itself next year into two independent, publicly traded companies. That effort would involve most of the WBD sports assets going to a newly created Discovery Global, and with a sports-focused streaming service now in development. 

It’s possible that the sweetened bids could lead WBD to enter exclusive talks with one of the companies.