NFL's Thursday Night Football Goes Exclusive To Amazon Prime Video

from the b-as-in-billion dept

While denialism over cord-cutting is still somewhat a thing, a vastly larger segment of the public can finally see the writing on the wall. While the cable industry's first brave tactic in dealing with the cord-cutting issue was to boldly pretend as though it didn't exist, industry executives more recently realize that there is a bloodbath coming its way. There are few roadblocks that remain for a full on tsunami of cord-cutters and one of the most significant of those is still live sports broadcasting. This, of course, is something I've been screaming about on this site for years: the moment that people don't need to rely on cable television to follow their favorite sports teams live, cable will lose an insane number of subscribers.

Over the past few years, the major American sports leagues have certainly inched in that direction. Notable for this post, 2017 saw the NFL ink a new streaming deal for mobile streaming with Verizon. The NFL had a long partnership with Verizon for mobile streaming already, but the notable aspect of the new deal was that NFL game streaming was suddenly not exclusive. Other streaming services could get in the game. And, while you can't draw a direct line to it, the tangential story of how the NFL just inked an exclusive deal with Amazon Prime for the broadcast rights for Thursday Night Football certainly shows you where this is all heading.

The deal runs from 2023 to 2033 and, according to a report from CNBC, will see Amazon pay $1 billion per year for the TNF package. Thursday Night Football is the NFL's newest and cheapest TV package, but the deal lets Amazon creep closer to parity with the NFL's other licensees, mainstream TV networks like Fox Sports, ABC/ESPN (Disney), CBS (Viacom), and NBC (Comcast). CNBC's report has the other four channels paying upward of $2 billion per year each, and unlike Amazon, the TV networks get to take turns airing the Super Bowl.

The exclusivity for Amazon seems like a mistake for the NFL, which really should want its product viewed in as many places as possible. On the other hand: 1 billion dollars a year. The Thursday lineups are typically one or two games each Thursday, far less than the deals for Sunday games. It's an incredible amount of money to pay just so Amazon can exclusively show the NFL's worst games of the week. But it also shows not only that Amazon understands the power and draw of live sports like this, but also that the NFL understands the power and draw of streaming services.

Building on that point, the NFL is also loosening up what its other broadcast partners can do in terms of streaming games.

The NFL's new deal contains streaming provisions for the other providers, too. Each network can now simulcast their games on their streaming service, and some deals scored one or two streaming-exclusive games. Disney's ABC and ESPN games are also allowed on ESPN+, and ESPN+ will get one exclusive game per season, the London "International Series" game. NBC games can also appear on the streaming service Peacock, and Peacock is getting "an exclusive feed of a select number of NFL games." CBS can stream games on Paramount+. Fox Sports, which wasn't part of Disney's acquisition of Fox, apparently has a streaming service called "Tubi," which can now simulcast the Fox games.

All of which is to say that the NFL is widely opening up its games to be streamed in more and more places. This shouldn't come as the world's biggest surprise, frankly. The NFL is a money-making operation and it does its marketing and promotional work better than most leagues. The very smart people handling broadcast contracts for the league certainly can see where the future in broadcasting games is and it sure looks like they are only going further and further into streaming.

If pro sports leagues follow suit, the end of cable television as we know it is nigh.

Filed Under: amazon prime video, cord cutting, football, live sports, sports, streaming, thursday night football
Companies: amazon, nfl

Amazon Looking To Expand Prime Into Live-Streamed Major Sports

from the play-ball! dept

For some time now, I've been ringing the warning bell for cable television providers that the cord-cutting trend has only thus far been prevented from becoming a deluge by live sporting events. It's one thing to watch TV dramas and reality programming either in binge-fashion or streaming days after the original television airing, but live sports is still a major draw for cable TV audiences. Because of the combination of broadcast partner deals many of the leagues have worked out with cable providers and the nature of the sports product, this may be the last bastion of hope for cable TV as we know it today.

But that thread of survival continues to unravel. In the past two years or so, we've seen the major athletic leagues begin to open up on the concept of live-streaming games. The NFL was among the first of the major players to ink toe-in-the-water streaming deals, but the NBA and MLB have followed closely behind. And while those deals are meager and fragmented in terms of the streaming providers in question, it's worth noting that Amazon is reportedly targeting sports streaming generally as a way to expand its Prime product.

Amazon apparently never stops thinking about possible perks it could add to its annual $99 Prime membership, and the next feature could be live sports. A report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that Amazon is in talks with professional sport organizations including Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, and the National Football League to negotiate the rights to stream live games and events.

According to the report, Amazon is looking at creating a premium sports package that it could include in Amazon Prime memberships. If it comes to fruition, a sports package could draw a lot of new customers to Prime, which already offers free two-day shipping, Amazon Video streaming of TV shows and movies, music streaming with Prime Music, the Prime Reading library of free e-books, and more. It would also be a big way for Prime to stand out among other streaming services, particularly Netflix, which has steered clear of sports since most people don't want to watch a football game after it's over.

The barrier to all of this, of course, is that those leagues already have broadcast deals in place with television providers. That is particularly the case with the MLB and the NBA, which both rely heavily on cable networks to broadcast their games. The NFL, on the other hand, has long partnered with the "local" national networks, CBS, NBC, and Fox. It therefore may have more room in which to wriggle into streaming sports, demonstrated by the fact that it has already done so in its Yahoo! deal. Regardless, one of the streaming titans getting into sports streaming, should it happen, should be setting off all kinds of warning bells for the cable companies.

In a time when streaming services are incredibly popular, live sports is a major reason people still pay for pricey cable packages. A good example is DirecTV, which saw a big subscriber bump when it began offering the premium NFL Sunday Ticket package.

With the market penetration for smart TVs and devices that allow streaming to be beamed to non-smart TVs, this interest by Amazon represents a major landshift in the cable TV market. Streaming services like Prime can be more nimble with pricing, as well, as they don't have to adhere to the practices of packaging undesirable content along with the channels and shows that consumers actually want. And, what's more, Amazon's interest here is likely to spur its competition to get into sports streaming as well, if only to keep up with the Amazonian Joneses.

Even if this takes a while to get rolled out due to existing broadcast contracts, the end may be nigh for cable television as it currently exists.

Filed Under: live sports, sports, streaming
Companies: amazon