Amazon Prime expecting Al Michaels to return on year-by-year basis after contract expires at end of season: Sources

With 80-year-old sportscasting legend Al Michaels’ contract expiring at the end of the season, both he and Amazon Prime Video are expecting him to return next year, sources briefed on the discussions told The Athletic.

Michaels’ original three-year deal that pays him in the neighborhood of Joe Buck’s $15 million per season ESPN contract concludes after this year. Prime Video has an opening round playoff game this year that Michaels and his game analyst Kirk Herbstreit are scheduled to call.

The plan is for Michaels to go year-by-year. He has said many times in the past that he will know when it is time to hang up his headset.

Amazon and Michaels declined comment.

Last year, Michaels was left out of the playoff broadcast booth rotation after NBC chose to go with up-and-comer Noah Eagle over Michaels for its second game of the opening weekend. Michaels was caught off guard by the decision, as he thought he would be on the post-season in his NBC emeritus role.

NBC moved on from Michaels following the Super Bowl in February 2022. It was the 11th Super Bowl Michaels had called, which tied Pat Summerall for the all-time most. NBC had long had Mike Tirico in the bullpen as its No. 1 NFL play-by-player in waiting after it brought him in from ESPN in 2016.

This year, Michaels has sounded more pleased with the games that Amazon has received as opposed to his first season on the streamer where he took a few digs at the matchups during games and in interviews.

The NFL very much wants the new platform to be a success and has granted it an improved schedule. This past Thursday, Prime Video had 18.48 million viewers, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel. The number was the streamer’s all-time high, eclipsing the Cowboys-Giants 17.61 million number from late September of this season.

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