Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
Katherine Taylor | Reuters
Amazon wants to be the exclusive producer of the National Football League for Thursday games starting in 2023, but the NFL may decide to keep certain games on the NFL Network and take less money from Amazon, according to people familiar with the matter.
Amazon is in talks with the league to pay about $ 1 billion for an entire season of exclusive games, outside the local TV markets of the two participating teams, said the people, who requested anonymity because the negotiations are private. Negotiations are ongoing and no decision has been made, people said.
In a new deal, Amazon would be responsible for all production costs and would still need to pay a local broadcaster to produce the game for domestic markets, as the NFL wants Thursday night’s games to be broadcast on local TV in each one of the participating teams’ home markets.
The NFL Network, which is usually packaged as part of expensive pay-TV packages, has requirements with pay-TV distributors to offer a number of games exclusively. The Wall Street Journal, which previously reported Amazon’s interest, reported on Wednesday that the NFL Network’s business requires it to broadcast five games exclusively. With the NFL set to add an 18th week, the league could conceivably give the NFL Network games Saturday and other enough carveouts to reach the cable’s limits without falling on Thursday, one person said.
Still, the NFL may decide to uphold the NFL Network’s value as a higher priority than giving Amazon a complete list of Thursday’s games. The league is still considering proposals to simultaneously stream Amazon’s games on Thursday on the NFL Network or to split Thursday’s games between Amazon and the NFL Network, two people said.
Amazon will not pay even close to $ 1 billion for a complete package of games that are not entirely exclusive, people said. Amazon is open to an agreement to obtain branded games that are broadcast simultaneously on the NFL Network for less money, people said. It is also open for a package where you get fewer exclusive games for less money.
“This is a beautiful watershed for the TV industry,” LightShed analyst Rich Greenfield told CNBC. “The fact that you can now watch the games on Thursday nights without having any local television – no antenna will work if you are outside the home markets.”
The deal would build on Amazon’s three-year deal with the NFL to stream 12 Thursday games in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons on its Prime Video streaming service. This deal allows Amazon to broadcast a game exclusively each season. Last year, it was a Week 16 game between the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers. Fox’s football deal on Thursday nights ends in 2022 and will not be purchased before, according to people familiar with the matter.
The NFL has been cautious about transferring broadcast rights to streaming services. The league is close to closing deals with its current TV partners – Disney (owner of ESPN and ABC), ViacomCBS, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Fox – for Sunday and Monday night packages.
Still, streaming is becoming the dominant form of viewing for millions of Americans and may have a global reach, unlike traditional pay TV. Several pay-TV distributors have signed deals with Amazon Prime Video to make their programming available on set-top boxes, limiting attrition to tens of millions of Americans who still pay for linear pay-TV packages from operators like Comcast and AT&T.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is the parent company of CNBC.