The prospect of Amazon mounting a major challenge to Sky and BT at the next multibillion pound Premier League rights auction has increased, after the streaming of 10 top-flight English matches attracted a record number of sign-ups to the retailer’s Prime service.
Amazon said millions of football fans watched the 10 matches livestreamed through its Prime Video platform on Tuesday and Wednesday night. The company said both days set records for the most new sign-ups since the company launched its Prime subscription service in the UK in 2007. The £79-a-year service provides perks including free delivery of purchases, occasional exclusive shopping deals and music streaming, as well as its TV offering.
The company spent a reported £90m on the three-year package of rights, which includes livestreaming a further nine matches on Boxing Day and one on 27 December, to test whether Premier League matches bring in enough new subscribers to make further investment worthwhile.
If the same level of success can be replicated over Christmas, Amazon chiefs could well be encouraged to seek a much bigger package of games at the next Premier League rights auction, posing a real threat to the prime packages held by Sky and BT. Under the current three-year deal, Sky paid £3.58bn for the lion’s share of matches, and a high proportion of games between the top clubs, while BT paid £975m for a smaller package of games. With a $900bn (£685bn) market value and a $7bn-and-climbing annual budget for making and licensing shows and sports rights, Amazon certainly has the resources.
“We’re delighted that millions of football fans enjoyed watching Amazon’s first ever round of Premier League matches on Prime Video.” said Alex Green, the managing director of Prime Video Sport Europe. “We are excited to be the first ever broadcaster to bring fans all 10 games live in a fixture round. We are thrilled and humbled by the positive response from Prime members.”
Millions tuned into the #PLonPrime this week!
— Amazon Prime Video Sport (@primevideosport) December 6, 2019
Thank you for making our debut so special 🙌
See you on Boxing Day! 🎅 pic.twitter.com/PGzbgnw4mh
In the UK, Amazon has been building up its portfolio of sports rights, including spending tens of millions for the US Open, it outbid Sky in a £50m deal for men’s ATP World Tour tennis and women’s WTA tournaments. It also offers NFL Thursday night football games as part of a $130m deal to non-exclusively livestream games globally outside the US.
Until now, the launch of The Grand Tour in 2016 had been Amazon UK’s record day for sign-ups. Amazon must now try to convert the record numbers of sign-ups to stay beyond the initial 30-day free-trial period and become a paying Prime subscriber. Amazon has an estimated 9 million Prime Video subscribers in the UK. The sign-up drive provided by covering Premier League matches could help it significantly close the gap with the market leader Netflix, which has about 11.3 million UK subscribers.
“Amazon’s broadcast of its first Premier League games has clearly gone really well, both technically streaming and also in the huge response of new sign-ups, albeit at the moment they are free trialists,” said Jonathan Broughton, lead analyst at research firm Media Business Insight. “If the broadcast of the next round of matches over Christmas goes as well I can see the potential for Amazon to have increased involvement in more sports rights, including bidding for more Premier League games at the next auction.”
