NFL's first Black Friday game will stream for free on Amazon Prime

The NFL's first Black Friday game on Amazon Prime is going to be free for everyone, even non-Amazon Prime subscribers.

Pregame coverage of the shopping holiday game will start at 3 p.m. ET on Nov. 24. Fans will have to wait until the league's schedule is released in May to learn which teams will be playing. In the meantime, the streaming service announced Charissa Thompson will host the pregame show with Tony Gonzalez, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Richard Sherman, Andrew Whitworth, Taylor Rooks and Michael Smith. During the action, Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit and Kaylee Hartung will call the game.

"It's such an unusual day because so many people have it off work. So it's really a unique opportunity to expose all fans to our broadcast," Prime Video vice president Jay Marine said.

Amazon Prime started streaming "Thursday Night Football" for the first time in 2022 as part of an 11-year agreement and will utilize the holiday viewership as on opportunity to promote the new product. An added bonus, the e-commerce platform will likely promote its many services and products ahead of Cyber Monday.

With the additional game, Prime Video will host a total of 16 regular-season games for the 2023 season from Weeks 2-17. Prime will also stream a preseason game.

Nielsen's national TV ratings measured Prime Video's 2022 “Thursday Night Football” viewership. Based on only Nielsen's research, the 15-game package averaged averaged 9.58 million viewers. The games drew an average of 11.3 million viewers when the Nielsen data is combined with Amazon’s internal first-party metrics.

The most viewers tuned in for Week 2, the streaming service's football debut. The game saw 13 million (Nielsen) or 15.3 million (Nielsen + Amazon) watch the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Los Angeles Chargers 27-24. The lowest TNF viewership was 6.8 million/9 million for the Panthers' victory over the Falcons, 25-15, on Nov. 10.