The NFL’s live-streaming pact with Amazon for the 2018 season kicks off Thursday — and the ecommerce giant company has some new tricks up its sleeve for “.”
Amazon is offering Fox’s feed of 11 “Thursday Night Football” games this season, available across Prime Video and Twitch, the company’s game-streaming platform. New this season, Amazon and Twitch will offer an array of interactive features for viewers, including being able to shop on Amazon for NFL merchandise directly from the living-room TV.
Prime members will be able to stream the “TNF” games via the Prime Video app for TVs, connected devices including Fire TV, mobile devices, and online at amazon.com/video/tnf.
Twitch will live-stream the NFL games on its global video service — free for anyone to watch, at twitch.tv/primevideo — where football fans worldwide can watch together and chat using custom NFL emoji. All 11 games will also be available on Fox broadcast, in Spanish on Fox Deportes, and on NFL Network.
“Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video and Twitch begins on Sept. 27 when the Minnesota Vikings take on the Los Angeles Rams (preshow at 7:30 p.m. ET; kickoff at 8:20 p.m. ET.) The Prime Video and Twitch “TNF” live-streams will include most of the national ads in Fox’s telecast, while Amazon is selling a portion of the ad inventory itself.
Related
On Prime Video, Amazon will offer viewers the option to watch the Fox broadcasts with commentators Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, as well as with three additional audio options: a feed featuring Andrea Kremer and Hannah Storm, who will become the first female duo to call NFL games; a version with Spanish-language announcers; and a feed from a U.K. broadcast team.
In addition, Amazon is enhancing the “Thursday Night Football” games on Prime Video with a new X-Ray experience on Fire TV devices. The features include real-time stats, letting customers select Game Leaders and Team Stats to keep track of top players rushing, passing, receiving and other stats live. They also can use the Play History tab to read the details on any plays they may have missed (or just want more information on). The Teams tab provides answers to questions like “Who owns the team?” and “How many Super Bowls have they won?” Customers can also use the Teams tab to find any player from the home or away roster and click to see facts about each.
Amazon also is lighting up shopping for “TNF” viewers, although it’s available only in the U.S. Via the X-Ray menu, Fire TV users can browse and purchase home and away teams’ officially licensed merch including hats, T-shirts and other gear.
On Twitch, “Thursday Night Football” enhancements will include co-streaming commentary from popular Twitch personalities. For the Sept. 27 game, Twitch streamer GoldGlove (twitch.tv/goldglove) will provide play-by-play and analysis for the Vikings-Rams matchup.
Live viewers in Twitch chat will have access to an array of NFL “emotes,” which are the emoji native to Twitch. The emotes include every team logo and some original emotes Twitch created to celebrate touchdowns, penalty flags, receptions and runs, and more.
Twitch also will add a new interactive extension for “Thursday Night Football” (not available on Sept. 27, but coming “soon”) that will let viewers access all of a team’s stats in real time by pointing and clicking on a video overlay. The forthcoming “TNF Extension” on Twitch will let fans make game and quarter play guesses, with a leaderboard tracking the top performers.
Here’s the schedule for the “Thursday Night Football” live-streaming games on Amazon Prime Video and Twitch for the 2018 season:
Week 4: Thursday, Sept. 27
Minnesota Vikings at Los Angeles Rams
Week 5: Thursday, Oct. 4
Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots
Week 6: Thursday, Oct. 11
Philadelphia Eagles at New York Giants
Week 7: Thursday, Oct. 18
Denver Broncos at Arizona Cardinals
Week 8: Thursday, Oct. 25
Miami Dolphins at Houston Texans
Week 9: Thursday, Nov. 1
Oakland Raiders at San Francisco 49ers
Week 10: Thursday, Nov. 8
Carolina Panthers at Pittsburgh Steelers
Week 11: Thursday, Nov. 15
Green Bay Packers at Seattle Seahawks
Week 13: Thursday, Nov. 29
New Orleans Saints at Dallas Cowboys
Week 14: Thursday, Dec. 6
Jacksonville Jaguars at Tennessee Titans
Week 15: Thursday, Dec. 13
Los Angeles Chargers at Kansas City Chiefs