Thursday Night Football will debut for free on Amazon-owned livestreaming platform Twitch beginning with this week’s matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and the Los Angeles Rams, the company announced Thursday.
Twitch Chat, are you ready for some sportsball?
Thursday Night Football kicks off tonight on Twitch.
Watch Vikings vs. Rams at 8:20PM ET: https://t.co/hdTjONg4cO pic.twitter.com/eEkfJKJcl5
— Twitch (@Twitch) September 27, 2018
Twitch will launch co-streaming with longtime livestreamer Brennon “GoldGlove” O’Neill, who will provide analysis for the game rather than Fox’s commentators.
In January, Twitch surpassed CNN and MSNBC by having approximately 962,000 average viewers at any given time, according to Macquarie Capital analyst Ben Schachter. According to 2017 total day viewership, that leaves it behind Fox News and ESPN, who averaged around 1.5 million concurrent viewers throughout the day, according to Schachter.
For any of the Twitch purists out there who are upset they are airing a real game… it’s technically a game that people are just watching, just not Madden.