On Black Friday, Amazon Delivers Lowest-Rated Game

The first iteration of Amazon’s grand experiment with the NFL on Black Friday yielded somewhat underwhelming results.

Friday’s 34-13 blowout win for the Miami Dolphins over the New York Jets averaged 9.61 million on Prime Video — the second-least-watched game on the Amazon platform this season behind only Panthers-Bears earlier in November (9.56M). Overall, it was the eighth-least-watched NFL game on a Nielsen-rated network this season, per SportsMedia Watch.

Perhaps more troubling was the fact that Black Friday’s 4.0 rating was actually the lowest-rated game on Prime of the season, with the 18-49 (3.2), 18-34 (2.5), and 25-54 (3.8) demographics all seeing season lows.

It comes after the NFL once again had a banner day on Thanksgiving, with Thursday’s Packers-Lions and Commanders-Cowboys games both posting massive numbers.

While Thursday games — both on Thanksgiving and otherwise — have become a norm for NFL fans, the Black Friday game may need some time to become part of the zeitgeist; after all, this is the very first iteration after Amazon paid a reported $100 million for the rights.

Assuming fans get adjusted, the game could ultimately pay huge dividends for Amazon: The e-commerce giant is using the opportunity to show more interactive ads to entice viewers to shop on one of its biggest sales days of the year.