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Tag: thursday night football

  • Amazon Prime Going Up $20 to $139 a Year

    Amazon Prime Going Up $20 to $139 a Year

    Amazon is raising the price of its popular Amazon Prime to $139, a $20 increase over the current price.

    Amazon Prime is one of the company’s main selling points, giving customers faster shipping and access to a large catalog of streaming TV and movies. Given its price, at $119 a year, the service is competitively priced, given all it includes.

    Unfortunately, the company announced at its fourth-quarter earnings that it was raising the price to $139 a year, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Meanwhile, monthly plans will increase by $2 to $14.99 a month.

    “Since 2018, Prime Video has tripled the number of Amazon originals,” CFO Brian Olsavsky told analysts, saying that “the continued expansion of Prime member benefits, and the increased use we have seen, along with increased costs and inflation,” were contributing factors in the decision.

    Another major factor is likely Amazon’s deal to broadcast Thursday Night Football, a contract that is costing the company $1 billion per year.

  • Colts Vs. Titans: Colts Prevail In The End, Thanks To “Luck”

    The expert play of Andrew Luck has struck again, and in a game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Tennessee Titans, the Colts pulled away in the end. While the Titans maintained a lead for much of the game, and it appeared they would win, Luck struck at the end and ensured that the Colts would get another victory.

    With their recent win against the struggling Tennessee Titans, the Colts have improved to a record of 7-3, and the Titans have fallen to 4-6. The game ended with a final score of 30-27 after a big push from Andrew Luck when the Colts scored 17 points in the third quarter, and prevented the Titans from scoring.

    For the past few weeks now, fans have seen the Colts struggle early and have successful comebacks, but that trend may not be able to last the length of the season. They have trailed in the first quarter during six games this season, and in last night’s game, they trailed 14-0.

    However, Luck is certainly making himself a candidate for one of the best young quarterbacks, along with Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson and Cam Newton, who are all having excellent seasons.

    Despite being one of the young guys, he understands that this is a problem that needs fixing. Luck was quoted after the game saying At the end of the day winning is what matters. We were fortunate in this game to survive our mistakes and have a chance to win. … But we know that’s got to be fixed.”

    The win against the Titans also puts the Colts at the top of the AFC South division, and they are looking good as the season starts coming to a close. Indianapolis was able to seal the victory with an 11-play drive that concluded with a 10-yard TD run by Donald Brown with 3:14 left in the game.

    The Colts completely took control of the game in the second half, and scored on four of their six possesions. Coach Chuck Pagano spoke of their second half performance, and the comeback win when saying “It speaks to the character and mindset of the guys. They were bound and determined to find a way. It was a great team win.”

    With a record of 7-3, and at the top of their division, the Colts will get ready to play against the Arizona Cardinals in week 12.

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  • NFL Games on Netflix Reportedly Considered by League

    NFL Games on Netflix Reportedly Considered by League

    If you buy the Wall Street Journal’s National Football League source, the story goes like this. The NFL is a bit disappointed with the ratings for Thursday Night Football, housed on its own NFL Network, and may be looking to sell off some more games to beef up the amount of professional football playing out on Thursday night primetime. Apparently, the NFL thinks that Thursday night doubleheaders would definitely spark the interest of viewers.

    According to the WSJ, these talks are in the “preliminary phase,” meaning no actual deals have been proposed – but the NFL has discussed this with various media outlets.

    Here’s a really interesting bit at the end of the WSJ article:

    The league also could move Thursday night games shown on NFL Network to another channel. The network may be able to drop some games without suffering a decrease in the affiliate fees it charges distributors to carry the network, the person familiar with the league’s strategy said. If the NFL Network were to sell off all of its games, it would be forced to renegotiate its affiliate agreements.

    Potential buyers of the games would likely be national cable sports networks. But league officials have also considered selling the Thursday night package to a nontraditional media partner, including online players like Netflix Inc. or Google Inc., the person said.

    Netflix & Google you say? Netflix hasn’t gotten into the live TV business yet, but they have been pushing hard into original content. And there are reports that Netflix could be on its way to cable boxes, with talks with the likes of Comcast and Suddenlink currently taking place. But once again, Netflix has never made any indication that live TV is something they’re interesting in undertaking right now.

    Still, the allure of all those eyes – and it’s a lot when you’re talking the NFL-watching crowd, could be a strong pull.

    It’s also interesting that the NFL and Google have been talking about bringing NFL Sunday Ticket to YouTube, as the NFL’s contract with current provider DirecTV is set to expire at the end of next year.

    Of course, all of this possible NFL goes online streaming talk is moot if the NFL isn’t really considering doubling up on Thursday night’s slate of games. And according to the NFL, we’re all barking up a tree that doesn’t exist.

    Check out what NFL League Office PR guy Brian McCarthy had to say on Twitter:

    Also, at least according to McCarthy, there is no ratings problem with Thursday Night Football…

    Still, it would behoove a PR guy to be pretty aggressive in dispelling any rumors about adding extra games to Thursday night – the NFL’s version of an automatic handicap.

    Just take what wide receiver Anquan Boldin had to say recently about Thursday game, player safety, and the NFL’s priorities:

    “There are some things that just don’t make sense to me. I mean if you’re so concerned about player safety, then why do you have every team in the league playing on Thursday night when they just competed on a Sunday, knowing how difficult it is for guys to get back to being healthy after playing on Sunday? Guys really don’t feel like they’re back till probably Thursday or Friday to prepare for that next week.”

    And I’m sure that Anquan Boldin isn’t the only player who feels this way. Any talks about pushing more games to Thursday have to be very, very quiet.

    Having said that, I hope everyone enjoys the Seahawks and Cardinals tonight.

    Image via Rajiv Patel, Flickr Creative Commons