More than 13 million people watched some or all of Amazon’s Black Friday football game between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs last week, according to Nielsen data released on Wednesday.
The average audience for the game was 13.5 million, up 41 percent compared to last year’s inaugural Black Friday game between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets. It peaked around 6 p.m. Eastern Time with 17.43 million people tuning in to watch the Raiders lose in spectacular fashion to the Chiefs.
The game was streamed live on Amazon’s Prime Video platform, which typically requires a subscription but was made free to football fans who merely signed up with an email address. A simulcast of the game was also available on Amazon-owned Twitch, though only on phones, laptops and computers.
The Black Friday game streamed one day after a trio of nationally-aired football matches broadcast by CBS, Fox and NBC. Fox won the 48-hour period between Thanksgiving morning and Black Friday afternoon, with its game between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants averaging 38.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen data.
CBS did not release ratings data for its early afternoon game between the Chicago Bears and the Detroit Lions — the broadcaster’s parent company, Paramount, ended its contract with Nielsen in October, and officials at the network declined to say whether they would release alternate viewership data when contacted by The Desk earlier this week.
That said, the CBS game was still measured by Nielsen, and the National Football League (NFL) itself said the Bears-Lions match averaged 37.5 million viewers, placing it in a close second with Fox for the day.
Comcast’s broadcast network NBC grabbed 26.6 million viewers with its prime-time game between the Miami Dolphins and the Green Bay Packers. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which aired earlier in the day on NBC, averaged 31.3 million viewers.
Amazon has the rights to the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” and Black Friday games through 2032. NBC has the national telecast rights to the Sunday prime-time football game during the regular season, while CBS and Fox share Sunday afternoon and early evening rights to NFL games.
