‘Bye Bye Barry’ Overtakes ‘Kelce’ To Become Prime Video’s Most-Watched Documentary Film Ever In U.S.
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EXCLUSIVE: There’s a new sports documentary on top at Prime Video.
Bye Bye Barry, which tells the story of hall-of-fame running back Barry Sanders, has become the streamer’s most-viewed documentary movie ever in the U.S. — taking the title from Kelce, just over two months after that sports doc set the record for Prime Video.
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In the documentary, Sanders finally explains why he retired from the Detroit Lions in 1999 while at the height of his career. It’s an explanation that sports fans appeared eager to hear, given the film had the biggest first week of any documentary movie ever on Prime Video in the U.S. after debuting on November 21.
Bye Bye Barry premiered at No. 1 among Prime Video’s Top 10 domestic films and has remained there ever since, according to the streamer.
Amazon didn’t release any viewership numbers for the film, though it is a safe bet that Bye Bye Barry will make an appearance on the Nielsen streaming charts in the coming weeks (Nielsen reports streaming audience data about a month delayed).
Bye Bye Barry entered the streaming landscape during the competitive Thanksgiving weekend, which is a holiday quite synonymous with Sanders and the Lions.
“While setting records was never important to Barry Sanders, we’re thrilled to see Bye Bye Barry breaking viewership records at Prime Video,” said Matt Newman, head of Prime Video Original sports content. “We want to thank our partners at NFL Films who helped bring this story to life, and Barry and the Sanders family for allowing us to tell their story. Both Bye Bye Barry and Kelce have reaffirmed our belief that great storytelling can deepen engagement with our live sports audience and invite new audiences in to the world of sports. We can’t wait to build on this momentum with the release of Coach Prime on December 7th.”
Presented by Prime Video Sports, Bye Bye Barry is an NFL Films production. The film is executive produced by Patrick Kelleher, Ross Ketover, Ken Rodgers, and Brian Rolapp of NFL Films. It is co-directed by Paul Monusky, Micaela Powers, and Angela Torma.
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