Amazon’s Black Friday NFL game was a hot commodity for advertisers heading into Thanksgiving weekend—the first time brands could pair their holiday bargain messages with the e-commerce platform’s tech-loaded NFL programming. Prior to kickoff, buyers and brands compared the game to the Super Bowl, and one told Ad Age that they anticipated north of 20 million viewers. But rather than the anticipated bang, Amazon’s “Black Friday Football” ratings landed like a sputtering parade balloon.

The game averaged 9.61 million viewers, according to Nielsen, peaking at 11.18 million viewers from 5:00 to 5:15 p.m. ET. Incorporating Amazon’s own data, the average jumped to 10.83 million.

Media buyers and ad tech executives described the numbers as “disappointing,” “not good” and “jarring” in conversations with Ad Age. But each reaction came with an addendum: Compared to expectations, or to the Thanksgiving Day games on broadcast networks, the numbers failed to impress; but factors including viewer awareness, game fatigue and the team matchup itself likely put Prime Video at a disadvantage. The business results from Amazon’s souped-up ad tech, data and commerce capabilities for advertisers may soon tell another story altogether, although one buyer said that data likely won’t come clearly into view for another few weeks.

“I don’t think there is anyone chalking this up to a failure in any way,” said a second buyer. The buyer, as well as most others Ad Age spoke with, said much blame likely lies in the teams that played last Friday afternoon. 

“The matchup [between the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets] looked really good on paper when the schedule was announced,” said the first buyer. But that changed when Jets star quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered a season-ending injury after tearing his Achilles tendon during the first game of the season; the Jets entered the game 4-6 while the Dolphins were 7-3. (The Dolphins won, 34-13.)

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The first buyer said Amazon would be obligated to give makegoods to brands if the audience didn’t meet guarantees, but declined to specify if this would be applicable to their own clients. The buyer said the Black Friday game mirrored Amazon’s first year of “Thursday Night Football” in 2022, when the tech company was “aggressive” with estimates and then had to offer makegoods elsewhere in its ads ecosystem.

“Luckily, their ‘Thursday Night Football’ is doing pretty well this year,” said the first buyer. “It’s up significantly over last year, so they may have the ability to make good within football, unlike last year when they overestimated. As advertisers look to make good on a football game, they’ll take comfort in knowing that the possibility exists to make good within football.”

A third buyer said the potential for Amazon to give makegoods for its Black Friday audience depends on each advertiser’s negotiated terms. 

“In order to purchase a unit in Black Friday and receive a guarantee, an advertiser was required to spend $1.5 million in totality across the season,” said the third buyer. “If a deal was cut for just Black Friday, that advertiser wouldn’t have received a guarantee.”

The buyer added that since ratings for Amazon’s regular “Thursday Night Football” season have been “over-delivering estimates,” advertisers that have purchased packages likely won’t need additional inventory to make up for the “Black Friday Football” audience.

Because of the heightened commerce and data capabilities for “Black Friday Football,” audience numbers weren’t necessarily top priority for participating advertisers. Rather, Jeremy Carey, chief investment officer at Optimum Sports, said Amazon’s capabilities appealed to brands seeking “the ability to talk about performance beyond legacy measurement.

“Every stakeholder is currently active in the process of evaluating what this could and did mean for their individual brands, and understand that definitions of success or failure is unique to every partnership,” said Carey. “The structure of our deals allows our clients and all stakeholders to learn and advance the consumer relationship.  While no one is happy with the audience numbers, arguably as important in this instance is the performance of the message relative to each fan that was watching.” 

‘Positive feedback’

Amazon, meanwhile, struck an upbeat tone in measuring last week’s results. 

“We’ve heard positive feedback from our advertisers about the viewer engagement our first Black Friday Football game created for brands,” Danielle Carney, Amazon Ads’ head of NFL sales, said in a statement to Ad Age.

Black Friday viewers were 78% more likely to search for brands or products advertised than viewers of ads on competitive NFL Thanksgiving games and 40% more likely to search for brands/products advertised than viewers of ads on competitive NFL networks, according to EDO data.

“We’ve been running interactive ads throughout this TNF season, and made our Black Friday game even more interactive and shoppable,” Carney said. “The game was our highest performing this season for engagement across interactive video ads and QR codes. It was encouraging to see our viewers so leaned in, building on an already strong season for brands connecting with TNF’s highly engaged audience.”

The Black Friday audience numbers were on par with the NFL’s expectations, according to a person familiar with the league’s thinking. There is a sense that the game could grow in coming years just like audience numbers on “Thursday Night Football” grew in the second season.

“These Black Friday numbers are completely in line with what ‘TNF’ did last year,” this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the league’s reaction. “Now, in year two on Amazon, ‘TNF’ is growing wildly and considered a huge success. What changed [from season one to two]? Just awareness.”

One of the game’s advertisers, Bose, aired two targeted, shoppable ads during the Black Friday game. 

“What we were most excited about with the Black Friday spot was the chance to test and learn how this new media format would work for Bose,” said Jim Mollica, chief marketing officer at Bose. “Reaching so many potential customers on one of the biggest shopping days of the year with relevant brand content that had a seamless direct response component—during what turned out to be a significant tentpole media moment—made it a really strong day for Bose.”

The Black Friday game also may have fallen short simply because viewers didn’t know it was happening. As a first-time event, “Black Friday Football” has yet to build the consumer awareness that the majority of NFL slates have developed over decades, said Dave Solomon, director of sports partnerships for cable ad tech company Ampersand.

“Last year, I would say Amazon numbers were not where Fox or NFL Network were [for prior ‘Thursday Night Football’ seasons]. And then this year, the numbers were up,” said Solomon. “A lot of that was muscle memory—people understand now how to access the game … I wouldn't think Amazon is too worried or the NFL would be too worried about it. One point is not a trend—if it happens next year as well and viewership is low as well, then maybe Black Friday wasn’t the best idea.”

Solomon also pointed out that many football fans stay indoors on Thanksgiving Day to watch the numerous NFL games that air, and then may spend Black Friday out of the house. The three Thanksgiving matches on CBS, NBC and Fox averaged 34.1 million viewers between them, and CBS’s game alone between the Washington Commanders and Dallas Cowboys averaged 41.8 million, according to the NFL, which cited Nielsen and “first-party digital.”

But on Black Friday, Amazon’s game—the NFL’s only game that day—was still the winner, rating 229% higher in the 18-49 demographic than the closest program across all dayparts. 

Advertisers don’t seem to be deterred by this year’s ratings. The second buyer said Amazon’s capabilities as a combined streaming and retail platform “definitely generated value for advertisers,” and a lower-than-expected rating for NFL is still higher than about everything else on TV.

The first buyer said the only thing this year’s ratings will change is media buyers’ ability to negotiate inventory next year armed with this year’s data rather than “speculation and estimates.”

Ad Age previously reported that a 30-second unit in Amazon’s Black Friday game averaged around $600,000. Next year, the fourth buyer said, advertisers will seek a price comparable to other NFL properties that pull similar audiences to this year’s game, like “a Fox or CBS regional game.”