Amazon primed for live telecast attack

NEW YORK • There is a growing trend of elite sporting events being live-streamed on on-demand video services as consumers continue to migrate to digital platforms.

Amazon, in particular, has made a major push to muscle in on territory once held by traditional broadcasters. Last month, the e-commerce giant secured broadcast rights to most of the French Ligue 1 matches for the next three years, prompting broadcaster Canal Plus to walk away from the league.

The award is the latest signal that Amazon Prime, which counts about 200 million members worldwide, is ready to bid for some of the most expensive sports rights to boost demand for its Prime Video platform.

Amazon agreed to pay €275 million (S$438.8 million) a year for the matches, and a person familiar with the negotiations said the deal "signalled a new era for Ligue 1 as its matches are distributed on a digital streaming service for the very first time".

Coverage of selected English Premier League games has helped Amazon secure nearly half of the new streaming subscribers in Britain. In 2018, it spent a reported £90 million (S$167.7 million) on the three-year package of rights, starting from the 2019-20 season, to exclusively show 20 games a term, including the popular Boxing Day schedule, and in May, that deal was rolled over until 2025.

Data from market research firm Kantar Media showed over 1.3 million subscribers signed up for streaming services like Prime Video, Netflix and Disney Plus in the final quarter of last year, with Amazon securing 49 per cent of the market share and Netflix, in second, taking 17 per cent.

Following the success of its broadcast of rugby's Autumn Nations Cup, Amazon has expressed interest in the Rugby Premiership, while England's Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney has suggested that the Six Nations could move from cable TV to Prime Video.

According to the PlanetF1 website, Formula One is considering the possibility of streaming its races live online, and negotiations are ongoing with Amazon.

In the United States, Amazon's deal with the National Football League, valued at about US$1 billion (S$1.35 billion) per season, to stream 15 games each term will start next year and run until 2033, marking the first time a streaming video service will have exclusivity for a package of nationally distributed games.

It has been expanding its portfolio from showing 21 regular-season New York Yankees Major League Baseball games for Prime members in four US states to securing exclusive five-year rights to stream tennis' US Open matches in Britain until next year.

Aside from its home US market, Europe is Amazon's biggest international market. The company is less active elsewhere, but in February signed its first sports broadcast deal in Australia after securing the rights to stream the national swimming trials for the Tokyo Olympics and next year's World Swimming Championships and Commonwealth Games. It also got the rights to broadcast New Zealand cricket matches in India last November.

But it is not just Amazon challenging broadcasters.

Streaming platform DAZN in March paid €2.5 billion for the rights to screen all Italian Serie A games for the next three seasons, including exclusive rights for seven out of 10 games per match day, beating out a rival bid by Sky.

Disney acquired the US broadcasting rights to Spain's La Liga in May. The eight-year US$1.4 billion deal, with most games to be streamed on its ESPN Plus app, starts next season and is reportedly the most expensive US media rights deal for an overseas football league. Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view events were broadcast by Fox until 2018, but has since been exclusive to ESPN Plus until 2025.

Unlike TV broadcasters, Amazon does not buy sports rights to push advertising and inflexible subscriptions. Via Prime Video, its aim is to attract new subscribers and retain customers in the hope they will shop on Amazon and use Prime delivery. Data firm Ovum noted that Prime's global subscribers spend twice as much on Amazon compared to non-subscribers. Competitors like DAZN and ESPN Plus are banking on flexible, cheaper subscriptions to entice customers.

Live sports is a key reason some viewers are still holding onto their legacy subscriptions despite the overall decline of cable TV.

TechCrunch reported over six million people in the US "cut the cord" last year, a 7.5 per cent year-on-year drop. However, as more and more top-level sports become available on streaming platforms, that could accelerate.

BLOOMBERG, REUTERS