Black Friday was give for Amazon Prime Video, which said about 13.51 million viewers streamed its NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Las Vegas Raiders.
Black Friday Football viewership was up 41% from last year, when Prime Video streamed its first Black Friday game, between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins. The NFL Champion Chiefs, in addition to being Taylor Swift’s favorite team, have been drawing big ratings all season.
Prime Video is looking to turn Black Friday, once one of the biggest shopping days of the year, into a sports destination. Next year, Prime will also stream a National Basketball League game on Black Friday as part of its new deal with the NBA.
While Amazon aims to keep people from wrestling for bargains at crowded stores on Black Friday, it still wants shopping. The company said ads during the game were sold out and many of the commercial touted Black Friday deals available at Amazon.com and some featured interactive features that let viewers get special discounts, more info, or put items in their Amazon Prime shopping cart with the push of a button on their remote controls.
The big viewership for the games was also a sign that big sporting events are shifting to streaming. In addition to Amazon’s Black Friday game, last year saw NBCUniversal’s Peacock stream an exclusive Wild Card Playoff game. And this Christmas, Netflix will stream to NFL games. (Netflix is working to ensure that the glitches that marred its telecast of the fight between Mike Tyson and Jason Paul. Netflix claims the fight drew a peak of 65 million concurrent streams, including 38 million in the U.S.)
With the Chiefs holding on to win a close game, Amazon Prime Video’s Black Friday Football peaked at 17.43 million viewers between 6 and 6:15 p.m. ET, up 56$ from last year.
Viewership among viewers in the 18 to 34 year old demographic averaged 2.53 million, up 43% from last year’s Black Friday game. In the 18-49 demo, the game averaged 5.72 million views, up 34%.
The postgame show, Nightcap, following the Raiders and Chiefs, garnered an average viewership of 3.85 million viewers, a gain of 60%.
Prime Video noted tha Black Friday Football drew more viewers than any of its competitors on broadcast or cable Friday night, just as its Thursday Night Football beat all of the shows that appear on Thursdays.
The ratings figures are from Nielsen, based on its panel data. Data from Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel system should be available later this week.
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