The NFL already owns three days of the week—why not four?
America’s wealthiest sports entity continues to grow, consolidating power by adding an 18th regular season week and expanding its playoff field from 12 to 14 teams. Like the British Empire in the Age of Imperialism, the NFL has faced little resistance in its quest for world dominance, threatening the NBA’s Christmas Day monopoly while staging a similar coup of college basketball with Saturday games in December and January.
Now another power broker has entered the fold with Amazon taking ownership of Thursday Night Football with plans to poach play-by-play veteran Al Michaels from NBC Sports and Hall-of-Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, Joe Buck’s broadcast partner on Fox since 2002. According to John Ourand of Sports Business Journal, the streaming giant is championing the idea of a Black Friday game streaming exclusively on Amazon. It’s a novel idea, though apparently, the league is only “lukewarm” about adding another primetime game to its already jam-packed Thanksgiving Week festivities.
Camping out at Best Buy and other retail outlets used to be a staple of Black Friday, but, thanks in large part to Amazon and the advent of online shopping, that tradition has largely fallen by the wayside. Packaging an NFL game with Amazon’s signature Black Friday deals would be a stroke of branding genius if Jeff Bezos could pull it off. The NCAA, however, may not appreciate the NFL encroaching further into college football’s purview with countless rivalry games scheduled for that Friday. The question is, does the NFL care?
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy Sports
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram