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As the NFL creates a broadcast strategy that more accurately reflects changing consumer habits, the rise of Amazon as a home for NFL games and Amazon’s continued dominance when it comes to buying habits across the world creates an obvious opportunity for a new day on the NFL Calendar.
Black Friday.
The day after Thanksgiving Day, the traditional launch of the Christmas shopping season, we were able to watch an NFL game on Amazon, with viewers being able to shop during commercial breaks. Or possibly while watching the game.
“Amazon wanted more from us and they are going to dedicate huge resources to do this job for them and for us,” said Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Peter King of Football morning in America. “Who knows? Maybe we will play on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year.”
This possibility comes with several obstacles. If the teams in a Black Friday game played the previous Sunday, there is a five-day break between games. If these teams have a Thursday after Sunday game elsewhere in the season, a competitive imbalance may arise, as these teams would have more games for short weeks than other teams. (In 2020, the Vikings and Saints played on a Friday, but the two teams did not have a Sunday-Thursday game that year.)
The approach also presents a potential political / legal problem. The broadcast antitrust exemption prevents the NFL from broadcasting games on Fridays and Saturdays, from Labor Day weekend through mid-December, as protection for high school and college football. If the game is not televised (including in the local markets of the teams involved), a streaming only option may provide an end to the exception to the broadcast antitrust exemption.
This may not be a bridge that the league wants to cross, however. Arguing that the exception to the broadcast antitrust exemption does not apply to streaming can lead to an argument that the exemption itself does not apply to streaming, paving the way for litigation by streaming companies against the league for selling streaming rights as a whole package. , not team by team.
In short, Black Friday – a term initiated by retail employees as a bad thing that has turned over time and public relations into a good thing – could start out as a good thing for the NFL and end with time and legal decisions as something bad.