Theathletic

Is the NFL about to own Black Friday too? Dolphins-Jets is likely just the start

E.Wright3 months ago

Cover 7 | Friday

In a different era, years before Amazon and Jeff Bezos entered the public lexicon, Al Michaels broadcast a handful of Black Friday college football games for ABC Sports from 1977 to 1985. He recently recalled a couple of post-Thanksgiving stops in State College, Pa., home of Penn State University, which is about 230 miles west of where he will be Friday at 3 p.m. ET — MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., for Amazon Prime Video’s Black Friday telecast of the Miami Dolphins against the New York Jets .

“Amazon had this idea in their sights from the get-go and I’m anticipating it will be very successful,” Michaels said. “Most everyone not at an outlet store or any other brick-and-mortar establishment will likely be home, working off Thanksgiving dinner, and they can do their Christmas shopping and watch the game at the same time. It’s exciting to be a part of something new that has a shot to turn into an annual tradition. When the schedule came out, it looked like (Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa vs. Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers , who is out with an Achilles injury), but we have to play the cards we’re dealt. There are still plenty of storylines.”

The storyline for the purposes of this column is whether the NFL, staging a game on Black Friday for the first time ever, is going to establish yet another day on the sports calendar that belongs to them.

History suggests they will.

Hans Schroeder, the NFL executive vice president for media distribution, said the league has been looking at the potential of a Black Friday game for a couple of years. Schroeder said Amazon delivered a proof of concept for its broadcasts last year that suggested it would fit for a Black Friday broadcast.

The promotion for the game certainly suggests the NFL is all-in. Amazon’s Black Friday broadcast has already received massive promotional benefits from the other NFL media rights-holders, including multiple mentions during the “Monday Night Football” mega-matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs as well as during the Thanksgiving Day games. The game matchup has significance even without Rodgers, given the Dolphins (7-3) lead the AFC East and the Jets (4-6) remain an interesting train wreck .

The first Black Friday game ever.

It's Dolphins week. pic.twitter.com/0RjcczmOOk

— New York Jets November 21, 2023

We also have a recent real-world example of Black Friday producing massive sports viewership. Fox used its New York Giants – Dallas Cowboys game last Thanksgiving as a promotional vehicle to push its Black Friday World Cup group stage telecast of the U.S. men’s national team against England. The soccer match averaged 17.2 million viewers on Fox Sports TV and digital platforms — a massive number. Would a World Cup match between England and the U.S. draw viewers on any day? Of course. But there is no promotion like NFL promotion, and that’s been well established.

Viewers will get free access to the game even if they don’t have a Prime membership. (You will need an Amazon account, however, to stream the game on Prime Video.) Obviously, Amazon bought this game (they paid a reported $50-$70 million for it) as a vehicle to promote Amazon at large. The company said viewers will see Black Friday sales deals available each quarter, as well as before kickoff and after the game ends. There will be an alternative stream featuring Dude Perfect, as well as “Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats.” The restaurateur and podcaster David Chang will be doing segments on Thanksgiving leftovers. Garth Brooks will be playing a postgame concert. Danielle Carney, the head of NFL ad sales for Amazon’s Prime Video, told Variety that Amazon had sold out all its commercial inventory attached to Jets-Dolphins, with major sponsors Columbia Sportswear, Bose and Carnival Cruises having big placements.

The big question here is how many NFL viewers will flock Friday to a streaming product to watch. As of this week, “Thursday Night Football” is averaging 12.27 million viewers, an increase of 26 percent compared to last season’s Prime Video schedule through 10 games (9.72M). This year’s set of games should surpass last year’s full-season average (9.58 million viewers) when the season concludes.

“This should be a very healthy audience,” said Jared Stacy, the director of global live sports production for Prime Video. “It’s obviously a classic divisional rivalry. You’ve got the Dolphins, great season, really entertaining teams to watch, and the Jets who in many ways have been the biggest, dramatic storyline in the NFL. At this time slot, we think that people are going to be home and doing what they do the day after Thanksgiving.”

Stacy said the shopping integrations will not be intrusive — viewers will let him know otherwise — and that the football game will always remain the focus. Look for pregame show cast members Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tony Gonzalez to be part of the shopping push. There will be a QR code at the bottom of the screen.

Schroeder said that multiple teams have reached out to be part of a Black Friday game next year and that the NFL’s focus will likely rotate the game to other teams beyond having the game permanently placed in the New York/New Jersey area. He said the league looked at different start time options but nothing later than 3 p.m. ET.

Jay Marine, the global head of sports for Amazon, said he believes the Black Friday game can become an annual tradition for his company.

Said Marine: “This is Year 1, and we will see how it goes together with the NFL, but our expectation and I think the NFL’s expectations is that this becomes an annual tradition if it goes as we plan.”

? Biggest trash talker? Most annoying fans?

One of the annual traditions of writing about sports media is noting the praise sports network executives heap on NFL schedules when the details become known in May. The running joke is that everybody’s schedule is incredible and nary a criticism comes toward the NFL (which is ironic since the networks pay the league billions). When the ESPN/ABC schedule became public this year, ESPN officials understandably were thrilled with landing the Super Bowl rematch between the Eagles and Chiefs this Monday. It’s a game that in other years would have been scheduled for 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday or placed on “Sunday Night Football.”

Heading into the game, “Monday Night Football” broadcaster Joe Buck told The Athletic that he believed it was as big a regular-season game as he and Troy Aikman had ever been assigned. ESPN did a ton of pregame publicity for it, added an additional sideline reporter (Laura Rutledge) and also enjoyed the pre-game publicity from the intersection of popular culture (Taylor Swift) and football.

The end result was one of the great nights ESPN has had this century. The game was the most-watched “Monday Night Football” game in 27 years , averaging 29.021 million viewers between +, ESPN Deportes and NFL+. The company said 450 MNF games were played between the one featuring the Green Bay Packers and Dallas in 1996 (31.5 million viewers) and this Monday’s game. It is far and away the most-watched “Monday Night Football” game in the ESPN era, which began in 2006. The audience peaked at 31.2 million viewers.

The number across only ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 was 28.958 million viewers, with ABC averaging 15.55 million viewers and ESPN averaging 11.49 million viewers. “Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli,” aka the “ManningCast,” averaged 1.9 million viewers, the franchise’s best in more than two years. The pregame “Monday Night Countdown” averaged 1.8 million viewers, that show’s best audience of the season.

It’s a night ESPN’s football people will remember for some time.