Amazon is set to take over “Thursday Night Football” broadcasts in 2022 and the NFL is planning for the Week 2 debut to hit the ground running with a premier matchup.
In Peter King’s latest Football Morning in America column, he details that the NFL wants to make an impression on Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos in order to show their newest business partner that investing in “Thursday Night Football” was a worthwhile and profitable venture. It was quite an investment too, with reports of Amazon paying upwards of $1 billion per year to exclusively stream Thursday night games outside of local broadcast networks. They’ve also handed out some big contracts to broadcasters Kirk Herbstreit and Al Michaels.
It makes plenty of sense why the NFL would want a big game to kick off this new era of “Thursday Night Football.” According to King, they’re targeting the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes for one-half of the opening matchup. He also predicts that an AFC West team — either the Denver Broncos or Los Angeles Chargers —could be the opponent.
