• by Wayne Friedman , September 22, 2022

Amazon Prime Video overdelivered some analysts' viewing estimates for its first exclusive regular-season streaming NFL game featuring the Los Angeles Chargers-Kansas City Chiefs, on the debut of its “Thursday Night Football” series -- some 13 million viewers, according to Nielsen measurement.

Some analysts expected numbers as low as 5 million to 6 million viewers for the big streaming service.

The 13 million-level mark would be in the ballpark of what Fox/NFL Network had a year ago for average “TNF” games.

Fox/NFL Network’s “Thursday Night Football” averaged 14.9 million Nielsen-measured viewers for a season's worth of “TNF” games. This puts Amazon’s results 13% below last year’s results.

One possible footnote here for some NFL TV business analysts: The 13 million mark also includes over-the-air broadcasts in the home markets of the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs. Local TV broadcasts in these markets accounted for 1.16 million viewers. That would result in a streaming-only audience at 11.87 million.

Fox “Thursday Night Football” best game of the year was the December 25 (Cleveland-Green Bay) game, posting 28.6 million viewers.

Just looking at the NFL Network it averaged 8.1 million a year ago when looking at seven games it aired exclusively on Thursday night and other days. The first “TNF” game a year ago was aired exclusively on the NFL Network, averaging 7.3 million viewers.