(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc.'s first National Football League broadcast drew 372,000 viewers who watched the game an average of 55 minutes on the internet giant's Prime Video service -- a small part of the overall audience for Thursday's game.
About 1.6 million viewers at least initiated a stream of the Green Bay Packers' 35-14 victory over the Chicago Bears, the NFL's oldest rivalry.
Twitter Inc.'s Thursday night streams last year averaged 266,000 viewers at any given time, the metric that best compares with traditional TV ratings. Twitter's games were distributed for free, while Amazon's were included in its paid Prime subscription.
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Amazon's debut comes at a time of increased scrutiny for the NFL, following a public argument with President Donald Trump over player conduct during the national anthem. Players on both teams stood and linked arms during the anthem last night, and many fans in the stands did the same.
Amazon is paying more than $50 million to air 11 Thursday night games this year, five times what Twitter paid for a similar package last year. In addition to Amazon, Thursday's game was available live on CBS, NFL Network and NFL.com, as well as on mobile phones for Verizon Wireless customers.
CBS said 14.6 million viewers tuned in on television for the broadcast, and 488,000 watched on all digital platforms. The Thursday night game in the same week of the season last year only aired on the NFL Network, making direct comparisons difficult. Last year, 14.2 million watched the Bears and Packers play on TV on a Thursday night in late October. This year's game, which included a 47-minute weather delay, was down 13 percent from CBS's first “Thursday Night Football” broadcast last year, according to trade website Deadline.com, though that game was earlier in the season.
To contact the reporter on this story: Eben Novy-Williams in New York at enovywilliam@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Janet Paskin at jpaskin@bloomberg.net, Crayton Harrison, Rob Golum
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