Amazon’s Black Friday NFL stream will be free, even if you don’t have Prime

Even people who aren’t subscribed to Amazon Prime will be able to watch the football game it’s streaming on Black Friday for free, according to an announcement from the company. Amazon’s partnership to stream the Black Friday game, which will be played at 3PM ET on November 24th, was announced late last year, but at the time it wasn’t clear if it would just be available to people who pay for Prime.

Amazon’s press release says that the decision to stream it for free will offer “a free sample of the benefits that come with Prime membership,” which may be a hint as to why the company’s doing it. It could act as a push for NFL fans who may be on the fence about subscribing to Prime Video to access its Thursday Night Football streams, which Amazon has heavily invested in.

It’s also a good way to get people thinking about Amazon in general on Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping holidays of the year. It’s easy to imagine someone watching the game, then deciding to subscribe to Prime because it’ll get them access to both more football and free shipping.

Streaming your favorite sports games can be relatively difficult and expensive, given how many companies are scrambling to snap up rights to different games and timeslots. While that problem will probably get worse before it gets better, at least we know that NFL fans won’t have to worry about whether they have a subscription or not if they’re looking to watch the “first NFL Black Friday game,” as Amazon’s pitching it. Now we just have to wait and see which teams will actually be playing, though it could be a while before that decision is made, as Black Friday is still over nine months away.