No local TV station will air Dolphins-Bengals, but you can watch anyway. Here's how | Habib
MIAMI GARDENS — Something to look forward to Thursday night: kicking back on the couch and watching the “Great Chocolate Showdown.”
It’s the finale in which “home bakers engage in the most demanding bake of the entire competition — sharing their baking story with four decadent dessert chapters,” the program description says, adding that $50,000 is at stake.
Something you can’t look forward to Thursday night: watching the undefeated Dolphins play the host Cincinnati Bengals.
Not without ingenuity, anyway.
Tua cleared to return: Mike McDaniel: If Tua Tagovailoa had head issue, ‘He wouldn't have been back out there'
5 takeaways from the win: Dolphins hold off Bills 21-19 to take control of AFC
Reaction off win: From the 'Butt Punt' to Ken Dorsey losing it, here's the best reactions from Dolphins vs Bills
How is this possible? And why now, of all times?
The game is being shown nationally via the Amazon Prime Video streaming service, which is in the first year of its $1 billion annual contract with the NFL. That makes this the first Dolphins game whose primary availability is streaming rather than cable or broadcast TV. Recognizing that not everybody has Amazon Prime, the NFL is also airing games in the competing teams’ home markets.
The catch: The game will be shown over the air on WSFL-Channel 39 in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale market. But unlike Dolphins preseason telecasts, there is no such companion arrangement for any station in the Palm Beach market. And WSFL’s signal barely stretches into the southern end of Palm Beach County.
It’s enough to make football fans hotter than the center of a chocolate lava cake. There is some good news. With a touch of creativity, even those who aren’t Amazon Prime subscribers can watch the game.
Here's how to watch the Miami Dolphins-Cincinnati Bengals game
Here are your options:
Subscribe to Amazon Prime. Duh. It actually doesn’t have to cost you a dime because Amazon offers a free 30-day trial. You’ll have instant video access and will never be billed — provided, of course, you cancel before the 30 days are up. Or you can become a Prime subscriber, which costs $14.99 a month for a package including expedited shipping of Amazon products. The Amazon Prime app is available on smart TVs and streaming devices such as a Roku, Apple TV or Amazon Fire.
Try twitch.com or the Twitch app on your phone or tablet. Twitch is owned by Amazon and will carry the telecast, too.
Try NFL Plus via the NFL app on your phone or tablet. It’s the NFL’s new streaming service for $4.99 per month. It allows you to watch all games available in your area as well as the prime-time games.
The old standby: Head to the neighborhood sports bar. Not every bar will have access to the game, so call ahead.
Eighty million households have accessed Amazon Prime video in the past year, so it’s not like the NFL is linking up with an unknown quantity. Just the opposite, in fact, because the play-by-play man is Al Michaels and the color analyst is Kirk Herbstreit, no strangers to pro and college football fans. And the pregame and postgame analysts include ex-Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. The executive producer is Fred Gaudelli, who worked with Michaels on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” telecasts.
Boca Raton fans might be in the dark but Homestead fans aren't?
Thursday night will mark the first time in recent memory that a Dolphins game won’t be carried on traditional sources in the Palm Beach market. There’s a certain irony to this because of the linear shape of the tri-county area. Theoretically, a fan in Homestead can easily pick up the game while another in Boca Raton cannot — even though the fan in Boca is closer to the Dolphins’ home of Hard Rock Stadium (in some cases, it's less than 30 miles). The reason: Homestead is part of the Miami/Fort Lauderdale market.
Did any Palm Beach station try to scoop up the game like Channel 39? John Heislman, general manager of WFLX-Channel 29, said he sent a note to his parent network, Fox, about the game but was told it wasn’t on the network’s radar. That makes sense, since many Dolphins games are CBS property. Heislman still had a hard time imagining that a live Dolphins game could “slip through the cracks” for all the local stations, and he’s right. It didn’t.
Alex Riethmiller, vice president of communications for the NFL, said the league’s contract with Amazon calls for one station in each competing team’s primary market to carry Thursday night games over the air. Naturally, that’s the Miami/Fort Lauderdale market.
Obviously, the over-the-air cutoff must come somewhere, and Amazon isn't paying the big bucks to share the rights with everyone. Still, it would be nice if the NFL and Amazon got together in future seasons and addressed situations such as South Florida's where there are virtually two primary markets.
The current situation explains why local stations’ prime time Thursday offerings include “Law & Order,” a “So Help Me Todd” pilot, the movie “Hocus Pocus,” “Welcome to Flatch” and the must-see chocolate extravaganza.
Meanwhile, the NFL — which accounted for all seven of the top-rated prime-time telecasts of 2021, according to Variety — is testing fans with this tune-in end-around as the Dolphins attempt to go 4-0.
To watch Prime, download and open the app, sign in or sign up for a trial at Amazon.com/Prime, look for the “Thursday Night Football” page in sports or “Live & Upcoming,” tap on Dolphins-Bengals and hit play.
And don’t fret. You can always tape the “Chocolate Showdown.”
Hal Habib covers the Dolphins for The Post. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Here's how to watch Miami Dolphins-Cincinnati Bengals Thursday game
