• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, February 26, 2024

Perhaps just one NFL game can put you on the roadmap to a new soaring streaming level. We'll wait and see if any streaming platform offense can get the best of a defensive marketplace.

Following Peacock's move to spend a reported $110 million on just one exclusive NFL "wild card" playoff game back on January 14 between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins, now Amazon is looking to do the same.

Peacock recorded 23 million viewers -- the highest-spending live event in U.S. history. Amazon believes it can do better.

According to a report, Amazon Prime Video will pay $120 million for the exclusive right to an NFL playoff game for next season -- which starts this September. That NFL playoff game will likely be scheduled in early January.

This follows up on the first ever exclusive Black Friday game back (on November 24) on Amazon Prime Video -- between the Miami Dolphins-New York Jets --  where it reportedly paid $100 million for that game.

I'd be surprised if all this doesn't set off alarm bells at all legacy TV-network based media companies.

If it's true, it would give a real hint about the real disposable cash on hand by big digital media. Think about Google's YouTube TV easily snatching up the “NFL Sunday Ticket” for $2 billion per season.

Up until this time, it now seems digital media companies have been toying with legacy TV media. They could quickly pounce and cause even more serious disruption to the fragile linear TV programming space.

So at $120 million, consider back-of-the-napkin calculations concerning the average number of TV commercials spot per game. Regular season games are around 67 thirty-second commercials. Post-season games are a bit higher -- around 77 -- according to Standard Media Index (now Guideline) of year or two ago. 

To break even -- very roughly -- Amazon would need to get $1.8 million per 30-second announcement.

Remember that the most recent Super Bowl inventory was priced at around $7 million for a 30-second commercial. Regular-season NFL 30-second commercials can go for around $510,000 (especially on NBC's prime-time “Sunday Night Football"), but can go as high as $600,000 closer to airtime.

So, all in all, it would be a money-losing one-time event. But the real goal, of course, would give viewers -- and especially major brands -- a stronger reason to get on board with Prime Video “Thursday Night Football” and other NFL contests in the long term. 

Amazon has touted high engagement levels for brands that participated in the special end-of-the-season Black Friday game, messaging tied -- performance marketing-wise -- to its e-commerce platform.

Could Amazon do Peacock one better? If they get a deeper NFL Playoff Game, say a divisional round match, or even an NFC or AFC championship Game, how many viewers could Prime Video get? 40 million? 60 million?

What could go wrong? Only an advertising fumble.