As kicks off its fourth season on Amazon Prime Video tonight, fans can expect even more data complementing the singular tones of Al Michaels’ play-by-play call.
The opener between the Washington Commanders and Green Bay Packers will see enhancements like “Pocket Health,” an AI-generated gauge of the threat level to quarterbacks from defensive pass rushers. An “End of Game” suite of tools provide a detailed sense of potential outcomes, scenarios and strategies in the climactic final minutes. With more nuance than the “win probability” percentages out of 100 that are now commonplace, the feature displays on-screen answers to pressing questions. How much time would be left on the clock if one team forces the other to punt? How long before one team can take a knee to clinch a win?
“If you think about any of your own experiences when you’re watching a game, your team is behind, it’s a close game. There’s only one question on your mind: ‘How does my team win?’ That’s it,” Alex Strand, Amazon Prime Video Senior Coordinating Producer, told Deadline in an interview. “It’s the math that commentators are already doing, and it’s the math that fans are already doing.”
The new features join existing ones like “defensive alerts” and “prime targets,” which have been layered in during recent seasons as Amazon has sought to put its stamp on the weekly showcase.
Sam Schwartzstein, TNF Analytics Expert, Prime Video, said the production team takes pains to not overwhelm the viewing audience. In some instances, the priority is giving on-air talent like lead analyst Kirk Herbstreit extra information to inform his takes. One example is Coverage ID, a tool introduced in past years that calls out the defensive scheme (zone vs. man-on-man, etc.) prior to the snap. “You may not see it on every play,” Schwartzstein said, “but Kirk has access to the model, he can actually see that on his own monitor.”
Amazon is kicking off the NFL season with momentum. TNF last season saw tune-in rise 11% over the prior year, averaging 13.2 million viewers per broadcast. The games have helped anchor a major advertising push, with upfront estimates exceeded and total ad revenue up 20% over 2023. The NFL success, the company hopes, will provide a template for the NBA, which will tip off weekly games next month on Prime Video as an 11-year rights deal begins.
After starting its exclusive carriage of TNF in 2022, with many viewers and industry observers deeply skeptical that a stream of a live NFL game could go off without a glitch, Prime Video has not stood pat. Along with enhancing the broadcast, it has grown number of games each season from 15 to 17, including this year a third edition of the newly created Black Friday game as a prime-time Kansas City Chiefs tilt on Christmas night.
The season also represents a milestone for Michaels, who is calling his 40th NFL season in a prime-time booth, having moved to Amazon after well-regarded runs at ABC and NBC. At 80, the dean of NFL broadcasters has moved into a year-by-year phase after the end of an initial 3-year contract.
Michaels has made no secret since boarding the tech giant’s telecast that he is not exactly an analytics geek, as evidenced by an old-school answering machine still set up in his L.A. home. On opening night, he will likely be more drawn to storylines like Micah Parsons being traded from Dallas to Green Bay or the Commanders’ dramatic resurgence than on any new AI variations. In that respect, he is a good proxy for the audience, who generally prefer a lean-back experience.
“It’s not about doing technology for technology’s sake,” Schwartzstein said, adding that the alternate telecast, Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats (on which he appears weekly) is the real feast for data nerds.
The lengthy development process for adding data-driven features to the broadcast “almost reminds me of 007 and Bond going into Q’s laboratory,” Strand said, deploying a fitting metaphor given Amazon’s recent step-up of its rights to the Bond franchise. “I don’t think he ever gives Q very many notes, but we’re like Q’s laboratory if we get Q more notes. And then we go back and we test more stuff, and we come back and say how about this now?;”
