Amazon is back at the bidding table for streaming rights to the NFL’s Thursday Night Football (TNF) games, according to Variety. They’re up against Google’s YouTube, Twitter, and Verizon. FOX just locked up broadcast rights to TNF for the next five years, but now Amazon is negotiating for digital streaming rights for equally as long.
Amazon paid $50 million for TNF streaming rights during this last season and made the games available to Prime members. According to the NFL, Amazon boosted overall consumption of TNF by about 2.5% in 2017. Twitter had the rights to TNF the year prior to Amazon, but Amazon’s viewership was 17% higher than Twitter’s results.
Verizon’s long-standing rights to stream NFL games on mobile phones just ended this season, so they might be eager to lock down a new deal. Google’s conflict with Amazon and desire to bolster YouTube TV as a destination for sports fans may cause them to be a serious contender. Facebook, which has bid for NFL games in the past, stepped away from negotiations for the current TNF rights.
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Dear Amazon- please don’t waste your money on NFL games. More high quality television and movies would be far more preferred.
-Joe (longtime Prime customer.)
Absolutely
Agree.
The $50 million they paid for Thursday Night Football last season is only 1% of the money they spent (~$4.5 billion) acquiring content for Prime Video in 2017, so it’s not like they’re blowing their budget on Football. It’s just one of the many categories of content that round out the service.
I still think they could do better, especially if the rumours are true that they’re interested in more international sports rights (e.g. Football (soccer) in the UK and they’ve already got some Tennis).
We’ve seen in the UK the problems that can arise from such approaches i.e. price rises, even for services unrelated to sports.
If they used that money for their own original shows, it could not only be internationally relevant, but also cheaper long term and I know sports fans who hate to see content divided up between services at an additional expense and may spite Amazon because of it.
Agreed, however, not sure about any other area but Amazon was showing what I saw off my antenna each week [my preferred method for best PQ] with no memberships or internet service required. WHY would they PAY to broadcast what is already being broadcast for free?
You are so right. Monday would be a winner.
First game of the season free and $2.99 thereafter?? It’s an Amazon thing.