Amazon Prime will not permit beer advertisements to appear during its Thursday Night Football broadcasts.
Key Details
- Amazon Prime Video does not permit alcohol advertising, a major traditional partner with sports events, on its platform.
- “Amazon says it prohibits ads that promote wine, beer, and spirits in the U.S., and a few other countries, like Canada and Saudi Arabia,” says Bloomberg.
- “Ad content must not encourage, glamorize. or depict excessive consumption of alcohol,” says Amazon Ads.
- 70% of beer advertisements go to NFL programming, says measurement firm iSpot.tv. $60 million has been spent in just the past two weeks.
Why it’s news
The shift may be a surprise to football fans, for whom beer advertising is a traditional aspect of game broadcasts.
“It was a rare absence. Beer makers and the NFL have a long and deep relationship. Budweiser’s Clydesdales are famous for their Super Bowl ads,” says Bloomberg.
Media consultant Brad Adgate called the idea of a football game without beer ads “unheard of,” saying “they go hand in hand.”
“Jason Damata, a spokesman for iSpot.tv, said that a professional football game without a beer commercial is highly unusual, adding that it’s hard to find an example of an NFL game without advertising from that category,” says Bloomberg.
“There’s a chance that some beer commercials could still appear during Amazon’s NFL games this season, but they won’t be sold directly by the company.”
Backing up a bit
As we previously reported, Amazon signed an 11-year agreement to make Amazon Prime Video the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football, at a cost of $1 billion per year.
Amazon Prime Video successfully aired its first broadcast of Thursday Night Football between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers on September 15 with limited issues. Early estimates suggest that viewership exceeded its planned 12.5 million viewers, which it told advertisers to expect.
