Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
Katherine Taylor | Reuters
Amazon wants to be the exclusive producer of Thursday’s games in the National Football League starting in 2023, but the NFL may decide to keep certain games on the NFL network and make less money from Amazon, according to people who know the subject.
Amazon is in talks with the league to pay about $ 1 billion for exclusive games for an entire season, outside the local TV markets of the two teams playing, people said, asking that it not be named because the conversations are private. Talks continue and no decision has been made, people said.
In a new deal, Amazon would be responsible for all production costs and would have to pay a local station to produce the game for domestic markets, as the NFL wants Thursday night games to be broadcast on local television. in each of the local markets of the participating teams.
The NFL network, which is usually shipped as part of expensive pay-TV packages, requires pay-TV distributors to carry a certain number of games exclusively. The Wall Street Journal, which previously reported Amazon’s interest, reported Wednesday that NFL network bids require it to broadcast five games exclusively. With the NFL scheduled to add Week 18, the league could give the NFL network enough Saturday games and other sizes to reach the limits of the cable network without falling on Thursday, one of the people said.
Still, the NFL may decide strengthening the value of the NFL network is a higher priority than giving Amazon a full list of Thursday’s games. The league is still making proposals to simultaneously stream Amazon Thursday games on the NFL network or split Thursday games between Amazon and the NFL network, two of the people said.
Amazon won’t pay nearly $ 1 billion for a full package of non-exclusive games, people said. Amazon is open to a deal where it gets branded games that are streamed simultaneously on the NFL network for less money, according to people. It is also open to a package where you get fewer exclusive games for less money.
“This is a pretty important event for the television industry,” LightShed analyst Rich Greenfield told CNBC today. “The fact that you can now play Thursday night games without having any local TV – no antenna will work if you’re out of the national markets.”
The deal would be based on Amazon’s three-year deal with the NFL to air 12 games Thursday in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons with its Prime Video streaming service. This agreement allows Amazon to issue a game exclusively each season. Last year was a Week 16 game between the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers. Fox’s Thursday night football deal ends in 2022 and won’t be bought before, according to people who know the subject.
The NFL has been cautious in ceding broadcast rights to broadcast services. The league is about to reach agreements with its current television partners (Disney (owner of ESPN and ABC), ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal and Comcast 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 agreements with Amazon Prime Video to make their programming available in decoders, which favors friction limitation for tens of millions of Americans who still pay for linear pay-TV packages. operators such as Comcast and AT&T.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is the parent company of CNBC.