Scheduling has always been a Pile of #*#* I do believe there are people somewhere that just seem to like to screw certain teams! That being said, I hope something flex's so Seattle can have something of a more normal ride in the games- Thank you for the Great info!
Jesus christ, the NFL owners really are bending over backwards for Bezos and his $11Billion dollar investment in Thursday Night Football. They must really want that guy to buy a franchise. All of these new TNF scheduling changes are probably directly tied to this:
"In 2021, Amazon became the first streamer to make an exclusive deal with the NFL, signing an 11-year pact for exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football at $1 billion per season. Amazon’s sports chief, Jay Marine, told staff in a September note that the launch game produced “the biggest three hours for U.S. Prime sign ups ever in the history of Amazon.” But while the streamer had told advertisers it expected to average 12.5 million viewers per game, at the end of the season Amazon said it had 11.3 million viewers, while Nielsen calculated 9.6 million average viewers. Amazon has said it compensated advertisers for the shortfall but offered no specifics."
(hat tip The Hollywood Reporter)
"Amazon has said it compensated advertisers for the shortfall..." I'm guessing all of these changes are there solely to placate Bezos on his massive investment, but paying $1B a year to air TNF, a notoriously problematic product, should be on Bezos' and his desperation to make Prime more profitable.
There's some real competition to write those billion dollar checks and Bezos signed a contract. The NFL isn't really under any obligation to modify the product because Bezos knew what he was bidding on. TNF has always been a shoddy product and multiple networks have now had those broadcast rights yet the NFL hasn't gone anywhere near as far to "improve" TNF until this year.
Agreed. I'm as annoyed by Amazon as anyone but I can't fault them for the TNF thing. It's a bad night of the week to have NFL football, and they're the first I've noticed try to make it a better product. When the pitchforks came out at Field Gulls when an article about Besos potentially buying the Seahawks was posted, I asked (and tried not to make it a "gotcha") how many of those folks up in arms didn't have a Prime subscription. No one answered. Amazon is practically a public utility at this point, but that's veering close enough to politics to stop there. Point is, anyone with enough wealth to buy either our NFL team or Thursday night football is going to be problematic for a lot of fans. And the NFL being a for-profit business is going to court those people.
I just read that the emergency QB rule is coming back, allowing teams to have a third QB without using a roster spot. Good news for Holton Ahlers, or someone not yet on the roster, as well as 31 other guys out there that just increased their odds of making the team.
Scheduling has always been a Pile of #*#* I do believe there are people somewhere that just seem to like to screw certain teams! That being said, I hope something flex's so Seattle can have something of a more normal ride in the games- Thank you for the Great info!
Jesus christ, the NFL owners really are bending over backwards for Bezos and his $11Billion dollar investment in Thursday Night Football. They must really want that guy to buy a franchise. All of these new TNF scheduling changes are probably directly tied to this:
"In 2021, Amazon became the first streamer to make an exclusive deal with the NFL, signing an 11-year pact for exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football at $1 billion per season. Amazon’s sports chief, Jay Marine, told staff in a September note that the launch game produced “the biggest three hours for U.S. Prime sign ups ever in the history of Amazon.” But while the streamer had told advertisers it expected to average 12.5 million viewers per game, at the end of the season Amazon said it had 11.3 million viewers, while Nielsen calculated 9.6 million average viewers. Amazon has said it compensated advertisers for the shortfall but offered no specifics."
(hat tip The Hollywood Reporter)
"Amazon has said it compensated advertisers for the shortfall..." I'm guessing all of these changes are there solely to placate Bezos on his massive investment, but paying $1B a year to air TNF, a notoriously problematic product, should be on Bezos' and his desperation to make Prime more profitable.
The NFL will bend over for anyone willing to write $11B checks.
They'd not only bend over but they would also provide the KYJelly.
There's some real competition to write those billion dollar checks and Bezos signed a contract. The NFL isn't really under any obligation to modify the product because Bezos knew what he was bidding on. TNF has always been a shoddy product and multiple networks have now had those broadcast rights yet the NFL hasn't gone anywhere near as far to "improve" TNF until this year.
Agreed. I'm as annoyed by Amazon as anyone but I can't fault them for the TNF thing. It's a bad night of the week to have NFL football, and they're the first I've noticed try to make it a better product. When the pitchforks came out at Field Gulls when an article about Besos potentially buying the Seahawks was posted, I asked (and tried not to make it a "gotcha") how many of those folks up in arms didn't have a Prime subscription. No one answered. Amazon is practically a public utility at this point, but that's veering close enough to politics to stop there. Point is, anyone with enough wealth to buy either our NFL team or Thursday night football is going to be problematic for a lot of fans. And the NFL being a for-profit business is going to court those people.
And truth be told, Amazon at least tried to make TNF interesting with the simulcasts
I just read that the emergency QB rule is coming back, allowing teams to have a third QB without using a roster spot. Good news for Holton Ahlers, or someone not yet on the roster, as well as 31 other guys out there that just increased their odds of making the team.
That makes sense and is good news.