Despite technical glitches, all caps fan complaints and ads for the service that people were already using. Amazon's first NFL broadcast was a hit.
Amazon is the first streaming platform in history to be the sole
carrier for a package of national games from the NFL.
There are a few things in life Americans love more than football. Like a flock of sheep to their shepherd, Americans will watch football wherever the NFL tells them to, which on Thursdays is on Amazon Prime, as of recently. Despite a barrage of complaints and fury from fans and critics over the technical glitches that hit last Thursday's game, Amazon's first broadcast was a massive success for the company.
The ecommerce giant saw a huge surge of signups for its Prime subscription membership, which is required to watch TNF, during the three hour long game. The signups broke records at Amazon, surpassing those on Prime Day, Cyber Monday and Black Friday.
The total number of new Amazon Prime subscribers was not disclosed in the internal email, nor was the total amount of viewers for Thursday Night Football's first game, which featured the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Los Angeles Chargers (27 - 24). The internal email noted that Amazon was still waiting for Nielsen to deliver its official ratings for the game.
The new Prime signups are no doubt a ray of good news for Amazon, which has turned into a digital punching bag for some football fans in recent days. For starters, some fans needed help actually finding the game's livestream on Amazon Prime. It is reported that the fans who tuned to Amazon's TNF broadcast complained that features such as "motion smoothing" were still on even though they had turned them off.
Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated highlighted complaints from users who said they couldn't start the game from the beginning if they tuned in late.
Not everyone experienced problems with Amazon's TNF broadcast. Some said it worked fine and delivered a great experience. And when it comes to those who had problems, it's hard to know whether it was Amazon's fault or whether they just didn't have their settings configured the right way.
Amazon said the wave of viewers even its own expectations and it's clear that the streamer did not consider the number of fans TNF would attract to its platform or their expectations when watching football. Considering that Amazon is spending $1 billion a year-for a whopping 11 years-to be one of the NFL's official broadcasters, it's baffling that the company didn't anticipate these potential user problems and plan ahead to ensure a smooth and easy experience.
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