Wondering why you can’t find 49ers-Cardinals on TV? Amazon special is only NFL game this season not televised

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The NFL Week 16 timetable incorporates an uncommon Saturday triple-header, notwithstanding, that won’t be the only uncommon thing about the slate of games planned for Dec. 26. For just the second time ever, the NFL has given select rights to a game to an internet organization.

In the event that you have NFL Network, you had the option to watch the 1 p.m. early game (Buccaneers at Lions) and will have the option to watch the 8:15 p.m. ET late game (Dolphins at Raiders) on Saturday, but you won’t have the option to watch the center game between 49ers and the Cardinals, which is booked for 4:30 p.m. ET.

The only method to watch that game is by streaming it through Amazon Prime or Twitch. The NFL giving restrictive rights to a normal season game to a non-television network is a profoundly uncommon thing that almost never occurs. The only other time the class has permitted a streaming organization to air a game came in 2017 when Yahoo was offered rights to a Ravens-Jaguars game that was played in London.

This time around, Amazon was given a standalone game as part of another streaming arrangement the internet giant endorsed with the NFL back in April. Not only did the arrangement give Amazon the rights to stream Thursday games through 2022, but the arrangement additionally included one game for Amazon that wouldn’t be accessible to any national TV network and that game is the one being played on Saturday afternoon in Arizona..

Obviously, the NFL won’t be completely ditching televisions for that game. Under alliance broadcasting rules, all games must be accessible on over-the-air TV in the markets of the two teams that are playing, which implies the only way you can watch the 49ers-Cardinals game on television is in the event that you live in Phoenix (where it will air on Fox-10) or in the event that you live in San Francisco (where it will air on NBC Bay Area). Everyone else should watch on Amazon Prime or Twitch.

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The game is actually being delivered by CBS, which implies you’ll see some natural faces like Andrew Catalon (in depth), James Lofton (analyst) and Sherree Burruss (sideline) on the off chance that you watch the Amazon stream.

In case you’re wondering why the NFL would give Amazon a standalone game, there are multiple reasons. For one, Amazon paid a lot of money for it, but more importantly, it permits the association to find out what the national appetite is for games that are only accessible through streaming. The NFL’s current television manage each network is set to lapse after the 2022 season (ESPN’s terminates following the 2021 season), which implies the class is currently somewhere down in negotiations to extend those. One of the options for the NFL could be to sell a type of streaming bundle and if that occurs, don’t be surprised in the event that it includes Sunday Ticket, which is currently on DirecTV.

As per the Sports Business Journal, Amazon Prime Video, ESPN+, NBCUniversal’s Peacock and DAZN are largely potentially interested in handling the rights to Sunday Ticket, which would permit them to ventilate of-market games to anyone who buys in. As indicated by the New York Post, Amazon could likewise wind up trying to procure select rights to “Thursday Night Football,” so a lot could be changing on the streaming front as the offers to land NFL games are worked through throughout the next couple of months.