Amazon wins exclusive streaming rights for NFL playoff game

Amazon has landed the rights to exclusively stream one National Football League playoff game next season on its Prime Video platform, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The deal comes less than a month after NBCUniversal’s Peacock became the first-ever platform to exclusively livestream an NFL playoff game. The January 13 matchup, a Wild Card game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins, made history as the most streamed event in US history. The game was streamed by more than 20 million viewers and boosted audience traffic on Peacock, “driving the Internet to its largest U.S. usage ever on a single day,” said NBCUniversal at the time.

In comparison, the Wild Card game between the Cleveland Browns and Houston Texans on January 13 averaged 29.2 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, NFL Digital and Telemundo, and ranked as the most watched Saturday NFL Wild Card game on NBC since 2014, according to a news release from NBC Sports.

Earlier this month, Amazon reported a 24% year-over-year increase in total viewership of “Thursday Night Football” this season, citing Nielsen.

“The November 30 Seahawks-Cowboys game attracted 15.3 million viewers, becoming Prime Video’s most watched TNF game ever,” the company wrote in a news release announcing its fourth-quarter financial results.