We’re about to enter the offseason, but even as months without football loom, Amazon gives fans something to look forward to.
While the Super Bowl is a momentous and festive unofficial national holiday in the U.S., it’s also the last game of meaningful professional football each year until August.
Amazon’s Prime Video aims to strike the balance between joy and impending emptiness in its Super Bowl commercial, set to debut on Sunday. The spot will preview Prime Video’s exclusive Thursday Night Football contract and try to build anticipation for its first regular season date, slated for Sept. 15.
Created in partnership with advertising behemoth Wieden + Kennedy, the spot reminds fans from around the country that their mundane lives will have to go without the much-needed respite of football for nearly six months. But the second half of the commercial turns from somber to hopeful, with Pittsburgh Steelers fans waving Terrible Towels, a Buffalo Bills fan putting his newborn through a cute tiny table, and Patrick Mahomes getting amped before the beginning of a game.
Football Is Open, Amazon proclaims before showing the blue crest logo it unveiled earlier this week. Prime Video will now be where football fans can escape the midweek doldrums and begin their weekends filled with football.
Amazon’s 11-year deal is worth $1 billion per season and will include 15 exclusive regular season games and one preseason matchup. It previously had non-exclusive streaming rights to TNF games that also appeared on FOX and NFL Network, with Prime Video games called by Hannah Storm and Andrea Kremer. Prime Video’s Super Bowl spot reminds NFL fans that its streaming service is the only place fans can start their football week properly .