Brin Werrett

Amazon is paying $100 million to broadcast the NFL's first-ever Black Friday game. But it's really a chess move to steal market share from brick-and-mortar stores and generate online sales. Let me explain 👇 Thanksgiving Day football has always been huge. Last year's games averaged 33.5 million viewers, including 42 million viewers for the Cowboys vs. Giants — the most-watched regular season game of all time. 2022 Average Viewership • NBA Christmas Day: 4.27 million • NFL Thanksgiving Day: 33.5 million But the NFL has never done a Black Friday game because 1) it's a holiday known for people leaving the house to go shopping and 2) the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 prohibits NFL games on Fridays after 6 pm ET and all day on Saturdays during the fall. This rule was implemented by Congress to protect high school and college football from seeing a decline in attendance and viewership because of the NFL. But Amazon offered the NFL $100 million for the game, so they decided to put it at 3 pm ET to skirt the rule. And it's an even better deal for Amazon. Amazon is allowing anyone to watch — Amazon's first TNF broadcast generated more Prime sign-ups than any other 3-hour window in company history — and Amazon is also reportedly charging 2x more than their TNF broadcast for 30-second ad placements. Cost Of A 30-Second Commercial • Thursday Night Football: $440,000 • Black Friday: $880,000 But more importantly, Amazon will leverage its new ad strategy called "audience-based creative." This will enable brands to target different audience segments with different ads in the same time slot. For example, according to Ad Age, Bose will show three different ads using Amazon's ad technology. The first ad features Joe Burrow and will be delivered to non-Prime members, while the other two Bose ads will feature different products and be shown only to Prime members based on their Amazon Prime search history. And here's the best part... These targeted ads will also be shoppable, meaning viewers can watch the commercial, place the product in their cart with the click of a button, and checkout without ever leaving the broadcast. That makes Amazon's broadcast far more valuable than a typical commercial — brands will be able to retarget these customers after the game — and it also gives us a view into how brand advertising could look in the future. Companies like Amazon and Apple are only going to spend more money on live sports rights, and their ad targeting could change how brands market forever. Now that's pretty damn cool. ** If you enjoyed this breakdown, follow me @JoePompliano for more sports business content **