Facebook Decides Against Thursday Night Football Bid
- Social network is still spending on video content, live sports
- Amazon paid $50 million to stream midweek NFL games in 2017
Photographer: Richard Sheinwald/Getty Images
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Facebook Inc., which has spent the last two years buying live sports rights to stream on its social network, is not bidding for the National Football League’s Thursday night package, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The NFL invited bids for its 2018 Thursday games late last year, and is expected to decide before the end of February. Though the rights to its more popular Sunday and Monday games are locked up into the next decade, the league has been using one- and two-year deals for its Thursday games to experiment with different partners and platforms.