Veteran sports announcer Al Michaels and ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit will helm Prime Video’s exclusive Thursday Night Football package beginning this September, the streaming service confirmed Wednesday. 

Michaels, who has served as play-by-play announcer for NBC’s Sunday Night Football since 2006, will join Herbstreit — who serves as ESPN’s college football commentator — in leading the streaming service’s exclusive NFL game package, part of an 11-year deal reached with the league reached last year. 

The signing of Michaels — who also called Monday Night Football games for ABC for nearly two decades beginning in 1986 and has served as an announcer for the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup Finals and Winter Olympics during a more than 50-year career in sports television — is a major acquisition for Prime Video, which is hoping to draw eyeballs and subscriptions with its NFL Thursday Night Football package.

Also: Amazon Kicks Off Effort to Tackle ‘Thursday Night Football’ Sponsors

Michaels will team with Herbstreit, who Wednesday also reached reached a multi-year contract extension with ESPN to continue his studio and game analyst role on  the sports network's College GameDay and on ABC Saturday Night Football telecasts. NextTV reported earlier this month that Herbstreit would be moving into Prime Video's Thursday Night Football announcing booth. 

“Kirk’s passion for college football and reverence for its traditions is unmatched,” said ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro in a statement. “His signature analysis and in-depth insight have earned him the respect of both fans and the teams he covers, and we are thrilled to ensure that Kirk will continue to be there for college football’s biggest moments for years to come.”

The move caps a busy off-season for NFL announcers in which a number of high-profile talent switched distribution outlets, including Fox Sports' NFL announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, will now serve as ESPN's Monday Night Football announcers. NBC's Mike Tirico is also expected to take Michaels' place on Sunday Night Football alongside Cris Collinsworth, according to published reports. 

ESPN in February re-signed Peyton Manning and his Omaha Productions to produce the Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli alternative broadcast that airs on ESPN2 opposite ESPN's Monday Night Football telecast.

Amazon is set to hire respected ESPN college football commentator Kirk Herbstreit as the lead on-air analyst for Thursday Night Football, the live NFL game package it will assume full control over this coming fall. 

The selection of Herbstreit was reported as a distinct possibility for Amazon last week by the New York Post's Andrew Marchand, after Amazon's first choice, Fox star NFL analyst Troy Aikman, chose to instead jump to Disney-ESPN and its venerable Monday Night Football franchise.

On Monday, NBC's Peter King reported that Amazon will indeed "settle" on Herbstreit, who is probably the most respected on-air voice in college football -- a position that doesn't buy as much locker room cred as you might expect amid the staggering popularity of the NFL game. 

Amazon signed an 11-year deal with the NFL a year ago to become the first exclusive TV-video home of Thursday Night Football. The deal reportedly calls for Amazon to shell out $1 billion a year to the league. 

Herbstreit makes $6 million a year as the lead analyst for ESPN's marquee college football matchup each Saturday during the season. His ESPN duties also require him to appear on Saturday morning panel show College Football GameDay.

The analyst reportedly has a clause in his contract that would allow for him to call NFL games for another company.

Herbstreit is often compared to college football announcing legend Keith Jackson for his depth of knowledge and insights about the college game.

Is his game NFL ready? Questionable.

Notably, Herbstreit, like Aikman, was a star college quarterback, lettering at Ohio State all four of his seasons (1989-1993). Unlike Aikman, who won three Super Bowls as the quarterback of glamor team the Dallas Cowboys, Herbstreit never had an NFL career.

Certainly, the pond Herbstreit is jumping in is much bigger. In November, Fox scored the biggest college football audience in two years, attracting 15 million viewers to watch Michigan finally end a losing streak against hated rival Ohio State.

The average NFL TV audience across all networks in 2021 was 17.1 million viewers. ■ 

(Updated on Oct. 25 12:45 p.m.)

This week, ESPN is turning to men who have made their living luring ducks to make a call about whether Tigers will beat Rebels in Death Valley on a Louisiana Saturday night.

College GameDay’s road show has set up shop on the Parade Grounds at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. There, Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Dave Pollack, Desmond Howard and Lee Corso will be joined by Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame (pictured with Mike the Tiger) and his brother Jase as the guest pickers, with the No. 24 Bayou Bengals hosting No. 3 Ole Miss on ESPN at 7 p.m. (ET).

In past stops at Baton Rouge, GameDay went Tiger with LSU athletes Olympian LoLo Jones and The Beard, pitcher Brian Wilson, sharing their pigskin predictions.

Instead on Oct. 25, GameDay is playing the home state card. Robertson was born in Bernice, graduated from The University of Louisiana at Monroe and lives in West Monroe . He’s CEO of Duck Commander, the Robertson family’s duck call and outdoor business. Jase is COO of Duck Commander and is credited with creating its triple threat call.

Perhaps GameDay would have earned more gridiron credibility if the picks were made by Willie and Jase's father, Phil, the inventor of the patented duck call and founder of the multimillion dollar Duck Commander enterprise. He also played quarterback ahead of one Terry Bradshaw at Louisiana Tech back in the day. Phil Robertson, though, totes a certain amount of baggage in the wake of the anti-homosexual remarks he made in a GQ magazine interview that resulted in A&E briefly suspending the Duck Dynasty leader.

Of course, none of the Robertsons has the current appeal or perkiness of Katy Perry, who was GameDay’s guest picker during the pregame show's visit to The Grove in Oxford, Miss. on Oct. 4, when the pop star presciently prognosticated that Ole Miss would top Alabama.

Perry, though, was not embraced so readily in Baton Rouge, though.  Three weeks ago, her message to LSU fans was let them eat corndogs as she picked the Auburn Tigers over the ones favored on the bayou. There were any number of signs in the crowd that depicted the foodstuff in the singer's mouth. For his part, Willie pointed out on GameDay that corn dogs are not widely construed to be among Louisiana's culinary delights.

For the record, the GameDay guys and the guest pickers picked LSU to geaux over Mississippi.

Neither has the current appeal or perkiness of Katy Perry, but ESPN has reached out to a pair of sports legends as its guest pickers for College GameDay.

Lee Corso, Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard and crew are encamped in Tallahassee, where they will be joined by NFL ironman QB Brett Favre and The Kid, MLB icon Ken Griffey, Jr.

The duo will be asked to weigh in on their picks in the battle of unbeatens: No. 2 Florida State and No. 5 Notre Dame. ABC will televise the action on Oct. 18 at 8 p.m.

Favre, who beat FSU as a member of Southern Mississippi in 1989 and created headlines for sexting former Seminoles student Jenn Sterger when both were New York Jets employees in 2008, and Griffey follow Jonathan Papelbon to the GameDay stage. Last week, the Mississippi State alum was resplendent in his Mississippi State red suit and bulldog in Starkville, a far cry from the lack of decorum he displayed late in the 2014 MLB season.

As ESPN raised the parlor game concerning whom will become the latest addition to GameDay’s guest picker roster, it will be hard-pressed to find the combination of pretty, sass and fun Perry displayed at The Grove on Oct. 4. Among other Perry pearls, her message to fans of the LSU Tigers: let them eat corndogs.