FOOTBALL – Al Michaels, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit to call NFL ‘Thursday Night Football’ on Amazon Prime
Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit will be the announcing team when Prime Video takes over the “Thursday Night Football” package in September.
Michaels migre de NBC vers Prime. Son contrat avec NBC a pris fin le mois dernier après avoir été dans le vestiaire du 11e Super Bowl.
“This is the new frontier in sports television and to be a part of the launch at this point in my career is both exciting and stimulating,” Michaels said in a statement Wednesday. “The NFL is the king of unscripted television, and I’m looking forward to joining Kirk to bring fans more dramatic episodes on Thursday nights this fall.”
Herbstreit, who has been with ESPN since 1996, will remain the network`s lead college football analyst and do NFL games for Prime. ESPN also announced Wednesday that Herbstreit had signed a multiyear extension.
Prime Video also announced that Fred Gaudelli will be its executive producer for “Thursday Night Football.” Gaudelli will remain with NBC in an executive role.
“Al and Kirk bring unparalleled experience to our historic new ‘Thursday Night Football‘ game telecasts as we kick off our groundbreaking new agreement with the NFL,” said Marie Donoghue, vice president for Amazon Global Sports Video.
Amazon pays $ 1 billion each season to broadcast the game for 11 years. The first game of Prime Video’s regular season will take place on September 15th. The NFL will announce the schedule in early May after the draft.
Prime Video will carry 15 regular-season games and one preseason game. Games will be available on stations in the participating teams’ markets, which is the same practice when they are on ESPN and NFL Network.
NBC has the opening game of the season and also Thanksgiving night. The final week of the regular season has two games on Saturday and the remaining 14 on Sunday.
The Prime Video move continues to shift the top announcement team in the NFL package.
ESPN announced last week that Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will be called “Monday Night Football” after becoming Fox’s No. 1 team since 2002.
Mike Tirico dubbs “Sunday Night Football” with Cris Collinsworth after Michaels goes to Prime.
