Al Michaels will handle play-by-play duties for Amazon’s ‘Thursday Night Football’

Veteran play-by-play announcer Al Michaels and longtime ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit have signed on to deal with Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night time Soccer” telecasts, the tech big introduced Wednesday.

The hiring of the skilled staff is aimed toward exhibiting that Amazon will present the form of viewing expertise NFL followers are accustomed to from community TV.

“Thursday Night time Soccer” is the primary common weekly NFL window to be accessible solely by way of a streaming platform, as Amazon dedicated to greater than $1 billion a 12 months to the package deal within the TV rights deal signed final 12 months.

Amazon will carry 15 common season video games and one pre-season contest over the subsequent 11 years.

Michaels, 78, spent the final 16 years at NBC’s “Sunday Night time Soccer,” essentially the most watched prime time program on community tv. He was additionally within the sales space for “Monday Night time Soccer” from 1986 to 2005 when it aired on ABC.

Michaels has referred to as 11 Tremendous Bowls throughout the 2 networks and is a part of TV sports activities historical past for his name of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Crew’s “Miracle On Ice” victory over the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, N.Y.

NBC has already introduced that Mike Tirico, who joined the community in 2016, will take over for Michaels alongside aspect Cris Collinsworth on “Sunday Night time Soccer” this fall.

Herbstreit has served as lead school soccer analysts for ESPN since 1996, engaged on ABC’s “Saturday Night time Soccer” and on ESPN’s “Faculty GameDay.” He’ll stay part of these telecasts.

In Amazon’s case, the signing of Michaels is akin to Fox Sports activities touchdown the legendary analyst John Madden in 1994 after the community scored its first NFL rights deal. Fox wanted Madden to present its unproven sports activities division legitimacy. Amazon is trying to Michaels to present its telecasts an identical stature.

Amazon’s decide up of Michaels and Herbstreit follows ESPN’s signing of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. The NFL saying staff left Fox Sports activities to affix the saying sales space on “Monday Night time Soccer,” as ESPN tries to raise the telecast, the place scores typically fluctuate with the staff match-ups.