Amazon to unveil Michaels-Herbstreit booth pairing for 49ers’ preseason finale

The streaming giant poached a broadcast team from some of its top competitors to signal its arrival in the football space.

After a lot of consternation, streaming is finally taking its seat at the NFL table.

Amazon Prime Video reportedly agreed to pay $1 billion annually over the next 11 years for exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football, beginning this season. The streaming giant poached a broadcast team from some of its top competitors to signal its arrival in the football space.

Al Michaels, a voice long synonymous with the NFL, and Kirk Herbstreit, making his debut as a full-season pro football broadcaster, will be Amazon’s pairing. Their first game is tonight, for the 49ers’ preseason finale against the Texans (also airing in the Bay Area on KTVU, Ch. 2).

Michaels’ deal with NBC expired after last season following 16 years of Sunday Night Football broadcasts alongside John Madden and, later, Cris Collinsworth. He was an obvious target for Amazon because fans associate him with big-time games going back to his days on Monday Night Football and even preceding that.

Even though it’s a different platform, the one thing I think you can count on is that we are not going to reinvent the wheel,” Michaels said on a media call earlier this week. “We’re going to do the games. People are going to tune in to watch the games, and we’re not going to do anything that’s crazy.”

Herbstreit is stepping out of his longtime college football analyst role at ESPN to moonlight on these Thursday NFL games. He’s added some NFL game coverage to his plate at ESPN over the last two years, but now he’ll be working 16 pro games in addition to his College GameDay and Saturday Night Football duties.

“Sunday has always been that day to just try to recoup and try to get your energy back ready for the next week. ​​I won’t have that anymore, so Sunday will be a prep day for me now,” Herbstreit said on the media call. “I really am not going to know truly what my week is until I get through a couple of games where I’m doing both the Thursday night game and the stuff I’m doing on the weekends.”

On the sidelines for Amazon is Kaylee Hartung, who may be familiar to college sports fans after she spent several years with ESPN before moving into news.

Amazon’s coverage is for 15 regular-season games (Weeks 2-17, excluding Thanksgiving) and one preseason game. The 49ers‘ Dec. 15 game against the Seahawks will also be a Thursday Night Football affair.