{"id":95446,"date":"2026-01-10T01:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95446\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T01:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:36:09","slug":"al-michaels-makes-his-thursday-night-football-decision-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95446\/","title":{"rendered":"Al Michaels makes his &#8216;Thursday Night Football&#8217; decision for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Al Michaels will be returning to the booth for the 2026 NFL season.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon Prime Video \u2014 where Michaels has been the lead game-caller since 2022 \u2014 confirmed his return to Sports Business Journal on Friday, with the 81-year-old insisting that he is \u201cat the top of his game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, I feel great,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/01\/09\/al-michaels-to-return-to-prime-video-for-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Michaels told SBJ<\/a>. \u201cEveryone at Amazon has been fantastic and I love working with this group. I\u2019ve been looking at this year one year at a time and as long as I feel I\u2019m at the top of my game, I\u2019d like to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38144334\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sports-commentator-al-michaels-watches-114320519.jpg\" alt=\"Sports commentator Al Michaels in a white cap.\" class=\"wp-image-38144334\"  \/>Sports commentator Al Michaels watches the game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers in game three of the 2025 World Series at Dodger Stadium on October 27, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Michaels, who has called prime-time NFL games for the past four decades, is set to broadcast Saturday\u2019s Packers and Bears wild-card matchup alongside Kirk Herbstreit as his final game of the season.<\/p>\n<p>The Brooklyn native had <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/20\/sports\/al-michaels-facing-thursday-night-football-unknown-as-he-declares-intentions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">previously made his intentions clear<\/a> that he wanted to continue calling \u201cThursday Night Football\u201d games, with Michaels noting that Prime Video had not made its decision yet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel really good right now. It\u2019s been a good year. A lot of fun. I love the people I\u2019m working with. So if I had to make a decision today, I would want to come back,\u201d Michaels said on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/media\/al-michaels-amazon-prime-return-2026-plans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">the \u201cSI Media with Jimmy Traina\u201d podcast<\/a> in November.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a two-way street here,\u201d he added. \u201cThey could tell me, \u2018Hey, we gotta move on. It\u2019s time to make a transition.\u2019 All that. It could happen.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38144337\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sportscaster-al-michaels-left-talks-116410337.jpg\" alt=\"Sportscaster Al Michaels and Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie talk before an NFL football game.\" class=\"wp-image-38144337\"  \/>Sportscaster Al Michaels, left, talks with Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie before an NFL football game against the Chicago Bears, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, in Philadelphia. AP<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut as of the moment, as we sit here on this mid-November afternoon, I feel really good. Still love what I do. And again, work with a tremendous crew. So, yeah, I think at this moment in time, I\u2019d like to continue, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Michaels\u2019 expected return also comes after the legendary broadcaster was caught <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/10\/03\/sports\/al-michaels-has-bizarre-moment-during-49ers-rams-tnf-game\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">struggling to keep up during multiple games<\/a> throughout the 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p>Michaels ditched NBC for Prime Video ahead of the 2022 season when the streaming service first gained rights to \u201cTNF.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He initially penned a three-year deal with Amazon that paid him $15 million per season. He is now reportedly on a plan that considers his status on a yearly basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Al Michaels will be returning to the booth for the 2026 NFL season. Amazon Prime Video \u2014 where&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[44560,9,11,10,22,36719,319,2085,6475,22644],"class_list":["post-95446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-al-michaels","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nfl","tag-prime-video","tag-sports","tag-sports-entertainment","tag-sports-media","tag-thursday-night-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}