“Thursday Night Football” returns to Amazon Prime Video this week, and more than 50 first-time advertisers will be part of the season, according to the company.

Amazon saw growth in ad categories including automotive, quick service restaurants, consumer packaged goods, retail, entertainment, financial services and hospitality. Amazon did not name any of the new sponsors.

Top sponsors from last year will be back on “Thursday Night Football,” which begins when the Bills play the Dolphins on Sept. 12. They include Verizon sponsoring the “Thursday Night Football” pregame, Subway on kickoff coverage, State Farm sponsoring halftime, JCPenney on the postgame show and Allstate sponsoring Prime Video’s “TNF Nightcap” segment.

Sports have become a centerpiece for TV and streaming ad sales, especially in the upfront market, where NFL inventory has become a rare and valuable opportunity to reach large, live audiences. Amazon, in particular, has drawn attention for using its retail data to target ads and measure outcomes for brands.

Amazon offered advertisers expanded ad tech offerings for this season, including expanding access to interactive ad formats that allow viewers to interact with shoppable ads with their remotes from Fire TV and other CTV devices.

Ad targeting will also be more customizable using Amazon’s first-party data, adding additional capabilities for segmenting and excluding certain audiences. 

Last year, unit prices for ad inventory during Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” averaged $440,523, according to Ad Age’s TV Pricing Chart. Prime Video’s exclusive Black Friday NFL game was a particularly hot item during the upfront, selling out in early July, Ad Age previously reported. Pricing for the holiday game increased slightly from the prior year but still came at a 25% premium to Prime Video's regular “Thursday Night Football” season, according to media buyers, who put the unit price between $650,000 to $750,000 for the upcoming Black Friday match between the Chiefs and Raiders.