Amazon Taps Charissa Thompson as ‘Thursday Night Football’ Studio Host
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Amazon’s Thursday Night Football team continues to take shape.
On Tuesday, the tech giant announced that Charissa Thompson, a veteran of ESPN and Extra, will be the main wraparound studio host for its primetime NFL telecasts. Thompson will lead Amazon’s TNF pregame, halftime and postgame coverage, joining analysts Richard Sherman, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tony Gonzalez.
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Thompson will also continue to work for Fox Sports, hosting its Fox NFL Kickoff show.
Amazon will become the exclusive home for the NFL’s Thursday primetime games this fall, after multiple years of sharing rights with Fox, NFL Network and NBC. The multi-billion dollar deal is the biggest by far on streaming sports, putting America’s most popular TV programming exclusively on a streaming service.
While there have been some other exclusive streaming sports deals (Apple has exclusive Friday night MLB games, as an example), nothing comes close to the scale and price of Amazon’s NFL bet.
And the tech giant has spent handsomely to ensure that it has the best possible product (something that the NFL has also pushed for). In addition to Thompson and the all-star roster of analysts, Amazon hired longtime NBC Sports announcer Al Michaels to be the play-by-play voice of TNF, joined by ESPN veteran Kirk Herbstreit.
But the wraparound shows surrounding the live game are almost as important as the game itself. They provide unique brand sponsorship opportunities, and help viewers form a more direct connection to the broadcast partner itself through the host and analysts. For Amazon to recoup its investment, it will need to build out infrastructure around the TNF game itself. And Thompson will be playing a critical role.
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