Can Amazon unite the NFL and the NBA for a unique business proposition?
The streaming giant, which launched a new Black Friday NFL game last year — the first of its kind and an event created specifically for Amazon’s Prime Video service — will add an NBA match to the mix next year, executives disclosed Wednesday.
Amazon won the rights to stream the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” exclusively in 2022, and last year launched a new Black Friday match aimed at assembling a large audience of fans who would be spurred to check out deals while watching a big-league sporting event. Now Amazon will add to the frenzy with an NBA match that airs after the football is done.
Amazon emerged in July as a significant rightsholder in the NBA’s newest media deal, which commences next year and also splits games among NBCUniversal and Disney. As part of the pact, Amazon gets to stream 66 regular-season NBA games around the world, including an opening-week doubleheader.
The set-up is a unique one in sports presentations. Amazon will have one main goal next year — to sell as many goods as it can as the holiday season gets into gear. But it will have enlisted two separate major sports leagues — which often like to vie with one another for the biggest audiences — to help spark the consumer behavior.
The company is in its second round of luring advertiser to the Black Friday NFL event, and has sold out its commercial inventory both times. More than 40% of the advertisers in this year’s Black Friday game are new, Amazon says. Meanwhile, the company intends to offer special “shoppable” ads that let viewers click through to its e-commerce site to make purchases, and will create exclusive deals for Amazon for sponsors.
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