The first “Thursday Night Football” game of the 2023 NFL season on Amazon Prime Video delivered record numbers.
According to Sportico, an average of 15.1 million viewers tuned in to see the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the Minnesota Vikings, 34-28. It’s the most-streamed NFL game of all-time, surpassing the streaming service’s inaugural telecast featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers last season (13 million). 13.3 million watched the game on Amazon Prime Video, with 1.1 million in Philadelphia and 656,00 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market watching from FOX affiliates.
In addition, the game delivered a 5.82 rating in the key 18-49 demo, which translates to 7.6 million viewers. That number topped the 18-49 audience on both “Sunday Night Football” and “Monday Night Football” in Week 1.
It’s a nice start for the streaming service, which averaged just 9.58 viewers in its first season broadcasting “Thursday Night Football.”
Eagles win on “Thursday Night Football” after incredible rushing performance
Viewers got a chance to see a matchup featuring the reigning NFC champion Eagles against the Vikings, a 13-win team from a year ago. In the end, it was the Eagles who came out on top, jumping out to a 2-0 start to the season while the Vikings fell to 0-2. Philadelphia was aided to victory by the way of 259 rushing yards, 175 coming from D’Andre Swift, whom they acquired in an offseason trade from the Detroit Lions.
After receiving just two touches in the 25-20 Week 1 win over the New England Patriots, Swift took advantage of starting running back Kenneth Gainwell sitting out with a ribs injury.
“Was I frustrated?” Swift said, via Mike Jones of The Athletic. “No. We got the win. I wouldn’t say frustrated… Prepared just to be ready for whenever he called my number. I know what I’m capable of.”
While not the cleanest effort, head coach Nick Sirianni was pleased to be 2-0 when the clock hit zero.
“We didn’t play our cleanest game,” Sirianni said, via ESPN. “I think the first week was a cleaner game for the defense and not as clean for the offense and vice versa with tonight. We are 2-0. A lot of teams would like to be sitting 2-0. When you are in this position, and guys don’t know that we aren’t playing to the best of our abilities, that’s when you can make a lot of growth.”
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