Troy Aikman may continue to be working on Thursday nights, after all.
Fox yields the midweek package after 2021 to Amazon. According to Michael McCarthy of FrontOfficeSports.com, however, Amazon is eyeing Aikman for its production of the Thursday night package.
The “dream team” would consist of Aikman as the commentator and Al Michaels providing the play-by-play call. Michaels, whose NBC contract expires after the current season, has been linked to the new Thursday night production for months. In September, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported that Michaels is “90 percent” likely to take the gig.
The Amazon broadcast will change the viewing experience. The short-week games in 2022 will be available on broadcast channels in the local markets of the teams that are playing. Everywhere else, the games can be seen only with an Amazon Prime account.
The experiment will sacrifice potentially millions of eyeballs, in theory. The challenge for Amazon becomes reaching as many fans as possible and getting them to change their viewing habits, watching a streaming service instead of a three-letter over-the-air network.
Even then, it could will take years to generate the same numbers that Fox and, before that, NBC and CBS have routinely harvested with Thursday Night Football.