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Even for a viewership juggernaut like the NFL, year-over-year gains are meaningful. Under that logic, Amazon’s NFL viewership rising 13% in a year is a big deal—even if it falls short of traditional TV numbers.
—Eric Fisher and Colin Salao
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After three seasons, Amazon’s coverage of Thursday Night Football still isn’t quite matching the package’s prior linear viewership, but it’s getting closer and continues to solidify itself as a vital part of the NFL’s broadcast landscape.
The streaming and online retail giant finished its 2024 season of TNF on Prime Video with an average per-game audience of 13.2 million, according to Nielsen panel measurements—up 11% from last year’s comparable 11.86 million and by 38% from 9.58 million in 2022. When including Amazon’s Black Friday game between the Chiefs and Raiders, which drew an average of 13.5 million viewers, the year-over-year lift increases to 13%.
Those figures are still less than the 16.2 million viewers on average who watched Thursday night games in 2021 on Fox and the NFL Network. Now three seasons in, though, Amazon’s coverage continues to show meaningful gains, and it draws a younger audience than the rest of the NFL’s broadcast partners. TNF games had a median viewer age of 49, nearly seven years younger than viewers watching the NFL on linear TV, and more than 14 years younger than the league’s audience on broadcast networks.
Along those lines, Amazon said this season was the most watched for the Thursday night package among viewers ages 18–34 with an average of 2.61 million viewers per game in that demographic—up by 37% from the final season of Thursday games on linear TV in 2021. The company also registered new viewership highs in the age groups of 18–49 and 25–54.
It’s also a wealthier audience, as Nielsen data showed TNF viewers had a median household income of $101,800, 16% higher than the comparable NFL average on linear networks.
“We could not be more proud of our partnership with The NFL, our viewership growth, and the innovations we’ve initiated for fans and brands over these first three seasons of TNF on Prime,” said Jay Marine, Prime Video’s global head of sports and ads, in a statement.
Perhaps even more impactful, though, the company continued to show advancement in its game production, using its data, analytics, and artificial intelligence capabilities to full advantage. Amazon also used its NFL foothold to help extend its reach further into both the NBA with a rights deal beginning next season and the NHL with weekly Monday night coverage in Canada.
When also including a local rights deal for the Yankees, Amazon now has a presence in all four major U.S. men’s pro leagues, as well as in top women’s sports with rights for the WNBA and NWSL. It also is a major distributor for the restructured and rebranded Main Street Sports regional network operator, formerly known as Diamond Sports Group.
Amazon’s success with large-scale NFL streaming, meanwhile, has also helped the league move forward with its separate and historic endeavor with Netflix for Christmas Day games.
The NFL season isn’t quite done for Amazon, however, as it will have one of the upcoming wild-card games for the first time, an event that could challenge the league’s streaming record of 24.3 million average viewers just set by Netflix. That Amazon playoff game will be on either Jan. 11 or 12, and will be finalized after the end of the regular season.
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Diamond Sports Group has officially emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection—with both a new vision for the business and a new name.
The regional sports network operator has completed its restructuring, finalizing a reorganization plan that gained court approval in November. With the company’s reemergence, it will now be known as Main Street Sports Group. The new name, of course, provides some separation from the DSG brand that became heavily damaged during a 20-month bankruptcy proceeding but also leans further in to its local media focus.
“With a stronger balance sheet, key partnerships, [and] supportive new owners, we are modernizing our business to thrive in a changing media landscape,” said Main Street Sports CEO David Preschlack.
The company’s network of 16 individual RSNs will still carry FanDuel branding, part of a naming-rights deal completed in October that is a fundamental component of the bankruptcy reorganization.
Main Street Sports currently holds local rights for 13 NBA teams, eight NHL teams, and eight MLB clubs. That latter count of baseball deals rose by one earlier this week after the Brewers surprisingly reversed their prior plan to work with MLB’s in-house model in 2025 and instead agreed to a restructured agreement with Main Street Sports.
“The decision to continue our rights agreement with FanDuel Sports Network ensures that fans will have seamless access to watch the Brewers in 2025, while enjoying the same high-quality production and roster of on-air talent that fans have enjoyed over the years,” said Rick Schlesinger, Brewers president of business operations.
Six MLB clubs—the Diamondbacks, Guardians, Padres, Reds, Rockies, and Twins—are still with the league model for the upcoming season, and commissioner Rob Manfred is still working on a long-term plan to pool the sports’ regional and national media rights.
Main Street Sports’ debt load of about $9 billion going into bankruptcy protection has been reduced to $200 million, in no small part through agreements in which some bondholders exchanged that debt for equity.
The company also completed a critical deal with Amazon last fall for the streaming and online retail giant to help distribute live games. The company overhaul, long thought by many to be an unlikely outcome at best, additionally included several other key steps such as an operational separation from Sinclair, the retooling of rights deals with the NBA and NHL, and the resolution of several legal disputes.
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Bryce James, the second son of Lakers star LeBron James, announced Wednesday on Instagram that he has committed to Arizona as part of the school’s 2025 men’s basketball class. The decision comes just months after Bronny James, 20, Bryce’s older brother, was drafted by the Lakers with the No. 55 pick.
Bronny and LeBron became the first father-son duo to play together in an NBA game during the Lakers’ home opener on Oct. 22.
While there’s been criticism over the Lakers’ decision to select Bronny James, who averaged under five points and three rebounds during his lone season at USC, LeBron’s eldest son was a top-25 prospect in the 2023 class, according to both ESPN and 247Sports. He suffered a cardiac arrest the summer before his freshman year.
Bryce, 17, has not received close to as much hype as his older brother. At 6-foot-6, he is much taller than Bronny (who is 6-foot-2), but the four-star prospect is not in ESPN’s Top 100 for the class of 2025 and is ranked No. 257 on 247Sports’ list. Even given his family name, Bryce is not projected to be an NBA-caliber player at the moment. However, it’s not uncommon for players to make jumps in college like Grizzlies stars Ja Morant and Desmond Bane, who were both unranked coming out of high school.
He also does not have the same social following as his older brother (8.1 million Instagram followers for Bronny compared to 2.1 million for Bryce). But as LeBron’s son, he will still be a draw for fans and endorsements alike (especially if his dad decides to attend games as he did with Bronny), which, in the NIL (name, image, and likeness) era of the NCAA, provides additional value for schools. But the flip side for some institutions is that accommodating the added attention James will bring comes with more work and potential chaos.
Bryce has received offers from Ohio State and Duquesne, which is located in Pittsburgh, but he ultimately chose the school closest to their family’s home in Los Angeles. LeBron has ties to the two other schools that offered Bryce, as he was born and raised in Akron, Ohio, and grew up as a fan of the Buckeyes, while his former coach at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, Keith Dambrot, is the current head coach of the Dukes.
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Simone Biles ⬆ The seven-time Olympic gold medalist was named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year after winning three golds and a bronze in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Biles dealt with mental health issues during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, when she withdrew from the women’s team final and four other finals. Biles beat out other strong candidates for the honor, including unanimous NL MVP and World Series champion Shohei Ohtani and Caitlin Clark, who was named the Time Athlete of the Year in December.
Thunder ⬆ Oklahoma City has won six straight since losing in the NBA Cup final Dec. 17. Because that is not included in the 82-game regular-season schedule, the Thunder have won 12 straight dating back to Dec. 1. The win streak counters schedule concerns posed by the tournament since teams that did not compete received an extended rest period. The Thunder played the first game of a road back-to-back two days after the tournament final, which head coach Mark Daigneault said the NBA “would never schedule” in any other circumstance. The Bucks, the NBA Cup champions, are 3–3 since the tournament.
TCU ⬆ The Horned Frogs have hired Mike Buddie as their next athletic director. Buddie was the AD at Army since 2019, which included a 12-win season for the Black Knights football team for the first time in history. The team also won the American Athletic Conference in its first season in the league under his watch.
David Beckham ⬆ The branded businesses of the soccer legend paid him around $124 million in dividends, according to the Financial Times. The report is based on accounts filed by DRJB Holdings, which includes David Beckham Ventures Limited that earns licensing revenues from brands like Boss. The 49-year-old is also the co-founder and co-owner of Inter Miami.
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