Online streaming platforms have been silently killing the concept pay-per-view on television sets. The advent rise of live streaming services, which now also includes Twitter, has further fanned the fire. But Amazon is now looking to completely obliterate the concept of television sets by exploring opportunities in live sports streaming segment, reports Wall Street Journal.
According to sources privy to developments, the American e-commerce behemoth has sat down with some major players, such as National Basketball Association(NBA), Major League Baseball(MLB), and the National Football League(NFL) to talk about rights to livestream their games on their soon-to-become global platform.
In addition, Amazon, as usual, isn’t restricting itself to live streaming sports events which are mass attractions for the entire world. Instead, it has reportedly also held talks with other sporting leagues including Atlantic Coast Conference, college-sports network Campus Insiders, 120 Sports, Major League Lacrosse among many others. But, you know what, that isn’t the end as well.
The e-commerce company is going to great lengths to acquire rights to as many as sports events to cater not only to the general masses but also to the regional populous via local sport live streams. Thus, it has also approached traditional TV networks about game rights they aren’t using at the moment. Amazon has contacted Univision Communications Inc. to produce and package Mexican soccer league games (Liga MX) which it doesn’t air at the moment.
They’ve also approached ESPN and ONE World Sports to collect the leftover niche live games such as Russian hockey league matches to the locals outside the United States. It has also joined the race to acquire digital streaming rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) to stream cricket matches on its video streaming platform — expected to launch in India very very soon. The company has recently also confirmed that it’s going global with the release of ‘The Grand Tour’ in over 200 countries in December.
Now to make its live-streaming service even more attractive to the masses, the e-commerce giant is most likely working on a new premium sports package — which will be a part of the currently available Prime subscription. This would be scintillating move on Amazon’s part, who is gunning to take on Netflix and outnumber it with its add-on services in the coming months. This will also put it in direct competition with the micro-blogging giant Twitter, who’s recently started streaming live events on its platform to give it a more social spin.
Also, don’t be disappointed if you have to pay a tad bit extra over the current $99 annual Prime subscription, as it is synonymous to what television operators charge for a seasonal pass of top league games. Amazon has also talked with NBA to exclusively license NBA’s League or Game Pass, which offers live out-of-market games, replays of past matchups, will be sold as an add-on for Prime members.
