Prime Video’s NBA Deal Is Unique for Amazon, What Other Sports Could the Streamer Similarly Pursue?
Prime Video’s NBA Deal Is Unique for Amazon, What Other Sports Could the Streamer Similarly Pursue?
Prime Video has made deals with nearly all the top sports leagues in North America in the past few years.
Amazon’s Prime Video has become a prime sports destination. The streaming service is fast acquiring sports rights from all of the top leagues in the United States, after the relative success of exclusive NFL “Thursday Night Football” streams have helped to convince leagues that Prime Video is a viable destination for their games. The NBA is the latest league to do business with Prime Video; the Association has reportedly agreed to the framework of a deal that will see Prime Video get a package of NBA regular season and playoff games. New data from Ampere Analysis is helping to demonstrate how truly unique that deal is for Amazon, and The Streamable examines other sports possibilities that could be in Prime Video’s future.
Key Details:
- Amazon has reportedly secured the rights to around one-third of national NBA broadcasts, as well as playoff series each year.
- Prime Video has usually pursued much smaller game packages than what will be involved in its NBA deal.
- A pursuit of the NHL by Amazon when that league’s national broadcast rights become available in the United States seems all but assured.
The sports strategy that Amazon originally pursued was highly integrated with its e-commerce platform. For example, the platform’s deal to acquire English Premier League rights in the United Kingdom in 2019 was specifically for a package of games in December, which helped drive customers to Amazon during the peak holiday shopping season.
In 2024, however, the company appears to be shifting its priorities and wants to use live sports to keep subscribers engaged with Prime Video instead of solely steering them to retail opportunities. For one thing, Amazon has not renewed its EPL deal past the 2024-25 season, and will instead opt for a UEFA Champions League package that will show throughout the UCL season. In addition, Prime Video did not try to outbid Netflix for the NFL's Christmas Day package, which would have been the perfect opportunity to add another sports option if Prime Video was only interested in luring more shoppers with its live sports, even if it was more focused on after-Christmas sales. Although, the platform does have the exclusive rights to a Black Friday game for the second year in a row.
Related: How Much Will It Cost to Stream Every Game of the 2024 NFL Season Without Cable?
Still, Ampere’s data shows that Prime Video has never acquired a package of games as large as its NBA bundle figures to be. Though no finalized details have been announced, various reports indicate that Prime Video is set to pay $1.8 billion for a package that could include up to 50 regular-season games, as well as playoffs including one conference finals series every other year. Before the NBA deal, Prime Video went after smaller, more specialized game packages that helped it gain rights to marquee sports, but did not require the company to pay a huge premium to get one of that league’s biggest and priciest packages.
As the following graph shows, Prime Video doesn’t currently hold the rights to stream more than 16% of any league’s nationally broadcast games. Its “TNF” deal gives it less than 6% of total NFL games each season, and the biggest percentage of broadcasts it owns in any sport anywhere around the globe is its Monday night NHL package in Canada, which it acquired just a few weeks ago. That deal is a sub-licensing agreement with Rogers Communications and will see 16.05% of Canadian NHL broadcasts per season sent to Prime Video. The NBA deal could grant Prime Video as much as 33% of national broadcast rights to the Association in the United States.
From a monetary standpoint, however, the NBA deal is a bit less unique for Prime Video. Once the agreement becomes official, the $1.8 billion per season that Amazon will reportedly pay will make up around 26% of the total value of the NBA’s broadcasting deals. The word is that ESPN is set to pay $2.6 billion for its package of NBA rights, including exclusive NBA Finals rights for the duration of the contract. NBCUniversal has apparently lodged a $2.5 billion-per-season bid for the third package of national NBA games, bringing the overall value to $6.9 billion per year. That figure could climb higher if Warner Bros. Discovery gets into a bidding war with NBC over the last outstanding parcel of games, however.
As Ampere’s data shows, the value of Prime Video’s portion of media rights approaches or exceeds the 26% figure in several territories. Its deal to stream the UEFA Champions League in the U.K. accounts for 32.84% of the total value of the UCL’s deals in that country, and the 26% of UCL rights fees Prime Video accounts for in Germany matches the percentage of the NBA’s new deal that Amazon will be on the hook for in the United States.
What Other Sports Could Amazon Pursue?
Unless the NBA deal unexpectedly falls apart, Prime Video will be partnered with two of the four top sports leagues in the United States going forward. So what opportunities are there for the league to partner with the NHL and MLB going forward?
The NHL is the bigger ratings prize of the two sports, but its rights won’t go up for sale until the conclusion of the 2027-28 season. At that time, however, it would not be surprising to see the NHL follow the example set by the NBA by splitting its national broadcast package among three providers, instead of sticking with the two it currently has. Prime Video would be an extremely logical destination for a third NHL package, with its reach of more than 200 million viewers, existing deal in Canada, and highly advanced live streaming technology.
Prime Video recently missed the opportunity to acquire a package of MLB games, suggesting its interest in that league is perhaps not as high. MLB’s Sunday Leadoff bundle was looking for a new partner when the 2024 season started, as its former home Peacock decided not to renew its MLB relationship. At first glance, acquiring Sunday Leadoff would have been highly similar to other Prime Video sports pursuits, granting the streamer a small package of games from a relatively highly sought-after league to get its foot in the door before pursuing wider deals.
Instead, MLB Sunday Leadoff landed on The Roku Channel in a deal announced in the second week of May. The fact that it took baseball executives so long to find a provider for the package, combined with the fact that the games ended up on a free streaming platform points to the conclusion that paid streamers like Prime Video showed little to no interest. Data released at that time showed that baseball’s audience was much more likely to watch games via linear TV than on streaming, so perhaps Amazon just doesn’t see the value in adding live MLB games. However, if the Diamond Sports Group is able to emerge from bankruptcy proceedings, Prime Video will likely have the ability to get into the baseball broadcasting business in one way or another thanks to an investment it will reportedly make into the regional sports network operator.
One area where Prime Video has not had a meaningful presence yet is college sports. But ESPN’s recent deal to lock up exclusive rights to the College Football Playoff until 2032 could change that. The contract allows ESPN to sublicense CFP rights to other outlets, and with an expansion in the number of playoff teams slated for 2024, the inventory of CFP games is about to increase dramatically. It would not be at all surprising if Amazon got its hands on a CFP game or two each year, if for no other reason than to start making meaningful relationships with NCAA officials that could pay off down the road.
Amazon’s hundreds of billions in retail revenue each year mean that it can continue to be aggressive in pursuing top sports. Its NBA deal is unique in how many of the league’s games it will offer every season, but it is yet another sign that sports on Prime Video are no longer simply intended to drive customers to Amazon’s online shopping platform.
Prime Video
Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.