The story. Amazon sells Thursday Night Football to two kinds of buyer: brands that do not sell on Amazon, who use it as a gateway to its DSP, and brands that do, who get sports without a TV upfront. (Digiday, 19 October 2026)
The numbers in this piece
01What happened
- Audience is growing. The 1 October Steelers-Browns game on Prime Video was the most-watched week-four game in its coverage. Nielsen Big Panel data put it 19% above the 2025 week-four game.
- Advertisers are following. Prime Video reports a 6% rise in Thursday Night Football advertisers this season. Since 2022 it has brought more than 80 brands new to the game and 54 new to Amazon itself, per Billy Davis, Amazon’s head of US live sports sales.
- Non-endemic brands use it as a way in. Joe O’Connor of Tinuiti said advertisers use Amazon sports to test the platform, then raise spend through its DSP. Tinuiti clients are set to increase Amazon DSP spending this year.
- Endemic brands get sports without an upfront. Luke Fowler of KSM Media called it a national add-on that avoids the large commitments of broadcast networks.
- Colgate is the example. Colgate-Palmolive spent $1.51 billion on advertising in the first six months of 2026, per SEC filings. It has not run a Super Bowl ad in seven years, yet it is running football on Amazon.
- Colgate retargets from the game. Amazon data lets Colgate Total show relevant assets on the retail platform to people who saw its game spot. A 2025 Lucid study of that campaign found purchase rates up eight times and branded searches doubled.
- The limits are real. Adam Schwartz of Horizon Media said the buy wastes money outside the regions where a product is sold, and works less well for retailers without national reach.
02What it means inside a GAM network
Our earlier Amazon coverage dealt with its auctions and its ChatGPT deal. This is the demand side of the same machine: live sports as the front door to Amazon’s ad stack.
The CTV seller should read the pitch closely. Amazon is not only selling reach on a game. It is selling the game together with proof of sales and retargeting in one buy. A broadcaster or streamer offering a similar sports package without a closed loop competes on the part that Amazon treats as the opener.
Two things follow for publishers selling CTV and sports-adjacent video. Budgets that go to Amazon through the DSP leave the open path, and Tinuiti’s report of rising DSP spend is the sign. And the no-upfront framing is a direct reply to how scatter and direct-sold CTV is bought today. That reading is APH desk analysis; Digiday does not report the budgets moved.
One caution on the numbers. The 8x purchase-rate and doubled-search results come from a Lucid study of one campaign, cited by Colgate, and Amazon’s advertiser counts are its own. Neither is independent proof of incrementality.
Amazon turned a football game into a funnel for its ad stack.
03What publishers should do about it
04The bottom line
Amazon turned a football game into a funnel for its ad stack. Sellers who cannot match the data should match the flexibility and show the outcome.