NFL Playoffs 2026: Prime Video Production Team Caps Historic Season With Iconic Bears-Packers Primetime Matchup in Chicago

NFL Playoffs 2026: Prime Video Production Team Caps Historic Season With Iconic Bears-Packers Primetime Matchup in ChicagoBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.

Friday, January 9, 2026 - 2:57 pm

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It's been an historic season for Prime Video's Thursday Night Football coverage, which averaged 15.33M viewers and surpassed all previous seasons of TNF across the 20-year history of the NFL package. Now, after its crew and fleet of state-of-the-art mobile units travelled more than 25,000 miles over its 17-week slate, Prime Video caps it all off with its second-ever NFL Playoff matchup. And what a matchup it is.

Inside the TNF on Prime broadcast truck during Amazon Prime Video's Thursday Night Football game this season, (Matt Ferris / Amazon)

It's absolutely a dream scenario, Prime Video Sports Executive Producer Mike Muriano said of the Bears-Packers Wild Card Weekend matchup. Not only is Bears-Packers the league's oldest rivalry, but it will be Saturday night in one of America's true football cities. And the forecast calls for a bit of snow as well, which would just be icing on the cake from a visual standpoint.

It's an honor to get any playoff game, he continues, but to be trusted by our partners at the league with such a high-profile matchup like this is really special for the entire team here. We're not a pound our chest kind of company, but everyone should feel really proud that the NFL is trusting us with this game. There is a real sense of pride in being bestowed this assignment.

After working Prime Video's fourth season of exclusive NFL coverage, Game Creek Video's Prime One A, B, C, D, and E (along with its office trailer) units and Prime Two pre are on hand at Soldier Field in Chicago to cover the game, while the Prime Two standalone truck that will again serve TNF's traveling pre/halftime/postgame. The mobile units along with a team of over 200 people were sent to Chicago after the league revealed the Wild Card Weekend broadcast on Sunday night.

That last Sunday [of the regular season] has become kind of like Christmas Eve for us in terms of what game we are going to get and what time slot we are going to get, says Muriano. When Sunday night rolled around and when we learned in real time, with the rest of America that we were getting Bears and Packers on Saturday night, it was definitely a wow moment.

In addition, Prime has edit, replay, Tagboard, research, and logger positions supporting the game remotely, as well as additional edit and replay support coming from Denver and Florida. The Prime Vision alternative presentation is also produced remotely from Prime Video's studio in Culver City, CA.

Prime Video will roll out its full studio show at Solider Field as it does each and every week for Thursday Night Football.

Since Prime Video already deploys one of the largest weekly shows in the industry, Muriano says the camera complement, audio coverage, and on-site facilities will stay largely the same. As has been the case all season, Saturday's game will be produced in native 1080p HDR using more than 40 cameras, while 70 microphones will be deployed throughout Soldier Field to create the Dolby Surround Sound audio mix.

We lovingly refer to ourselves as the traveling circus since we have this very high-end show with a huge team on site production for 17 weeks a year, says Muriano. We're training that production muscle all year long and, even though it sounds clich , we really take treat every game like a playoff matchup. That said, we recognize that this is truly a primetime playoff game so we're finding small ways to take what we're already doing and enhance it.

Prime continues to increase its high-frame-rate camera complement for the TNF, with 28 systems now capable of super-slo-mo for Saturday's game production. Nine cameras are configured for SMT virtual graphics and three are outfitted for augmented reality graphics. Prime will also once again have both high and low Skycam systems.

In addition to the full arsenal of Sony cameras that rolls with Prime One and Prime Two, NEP Specialty Capture is providing two sideline Sony HDC-4800 4K/HFR robos (with Fuji 20-120x lenses); two Goal Line Sony 4800 4K/ HFR robos (with Fuji 85-300 mm lenses); three Sony 4500 4K Hawk Eye Replay Servers for Goal Line, Sideline, and 4K Skycam Playback; and two Goal Post robos (PeePod 500's w/ Truck Supplied Cameras/ Lenses), as well as a pair Panasonic AWUE150 PTZ cameras in the hallway/locker rooms

Each camera has been chosen for a specific storytelling or technical need, whether it's capturing emotion, speed, or precision, says Muriano. We're looking at how we can graphically enhance some things and where we can bring in some other creative storytelling elements - both on the game coverage and the pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage.

As is standard each and every week for TNF, Host Charissa Thompson, alongside analysts Tony Gonzalez, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Andrew Whitworth, and Richard Sherman, will be on-site providing analysis and showcasing the unique atmosphere at Soldier Field leading up to kickoff. In addition, 40 years after Chicago's last Super Bowl win, Bears legend Mike Singletary will highlight the opportunity in front of this year's team.

Since we're the primetime game, we only have a 30-minute show, which is a smaller window that we're used to, says Muriano. So it will be a challenge to not only preview the game, but also highlight the history of this rivalry and showcase the city of Chicago. We want to tap into the football-loving culture there. We will also have a live shot starting in pregame and then all the way through the night of a Packers bar in Chicago.

Personnel wise, Muriano says it starts at the

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/01/09/nfl-playoffs-2026-prime-video-p...
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