The final broadcast of the 2024 NFL regular season on Thursday Night Football averaged 11.04 million viewers on Amazon’s Prime Video and on local affiliate stations in home marketplaces, according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch. The low-scoring matchup, which ended in a 6-3 victory for the Seattle Seahawks over the Chicago Bears, ranks as the second least-watched iteration of Thursday Night Football on the season. This game finished approximately 10,000 viewers ahead of the Week 16 game between the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers. The Week 7 game between the Denver Broncos and New Orleans Saints attained the lowest average viewership on the property this season with an audience of 9.81 million consumers.
Compared to the previous year, the game was up 7% from the AFC tilt with the New York Jets and Cleveland Browns that averaged 10.29 million viewers. Moreover, the contest secured a 13% gain over the Dallas Cowboys and Tennessee Titans game in Week 17 of the 2022 season. In fact, Lewis stated that the Seahawks-Bears game had the highest viewership for the final Thursday night game of a season since 2020. Amazon’s Prime Video has been the broadcast home of Thursday Night Football since the 2022 season and started a 10-year deal last season for which it reportedly pays $1 billion per year.
This marks the third season with the Thursday Night Football lead broadcast team of play-by-play announcer Al Michaels, analyst Kirk Herbstreit and reporter Kaylee Hartung. Michaels is reportedly expected to return to the franchise for the 2025 season as his contract expires at the end of the year, according to a report from Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. The broadcast team, however, still has one more game to call this season in a Wild Card round game exclusively streaming on Prime Video. The company is reportedly paying $150 million for the rights to this game, according to a report from Alex Sherman of CNBC.
Leading into the Week 17 matchup, Thursday Night Football was averaging 13.34 million viewers, an 11% year-over-year rise, and has attained the most total viewers on broadcast and cable programming. The TNF Tonight pregame show was averaging 1.56 million viewers (+12% YoY) while the TNF Nightcap postgame was averaging 2.05 million viewers (+11% YoY). Amazon’s most-watched NFL broadcast in history took place in Week 14 when the walk-off field goal victory for the Detroit Lions over the Green Bay Packers averaged 17.29 million viewers. Three of the five most-viewed Thursday Night Football games have taken place during the 2024 regular season.
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