It’s official: The new Thursday Night Football broadcasting team is Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit.
Amazon, which takes over the Thursday night package this year and will show games exclusively on its streaming service, announced today that Michaels and Herbstreit will be in the booth. The move had been widely expected.
It was important for Amazon, as the first streaming service to get exclusive access to a major package of NFL games, to gain credibility for its broadcast with seasoned announcers like Michaels and Herbstreit. Michaels is perhaps the most accomplished play-by-play voice in sports television history, and Herbstreit has become very popular while calling college football and occasional NFL games on ESPN. (ESPN issued a separate announcement today confirming that Herbstreit will continue to call college football games and appear on the Saturday morning GameDay pregame show.)
Amazon’s first Thursday night game will be in Week Two. NBC will continue to show the Thursday night regular-season opener in Week One.