Amazon Set to Bulk Up Their Sports Streaming

Exclusive | Amazon nears major deal to broadcast NBA, MLB and NHL games on Prime streaming: sources

Amazon is in late-stage talks for a contract to livestream this coming season all the Bally Sports broadcasts of 12 NBA franchises, as well as five MLB teams and nine NHL teams, sources said.

New York PostJosh Kosman

I briefly mentioned this in the newsletter yesterday as it was breaking, but to flesh it out a bit:¹

Amazon is in talks to become a major player in regional sports broadcasting for the NBA, MLB and NHL — with a surprise deal that could shake up the way fans have watched their local teams for decades, The Post has learned.

The Seattle-based e-tailing giant headed by Jeff Bezos is in late-stage talks for a contract to livestream on Amazon Prime this coming season all the Bally Sports broadcasts of 13 NBA franchises, as well as five MLB teams and nine NHL teams, sources close to the situation said.

This is big news since it seemed Amazon was walking away from their deal to help bail out Diamond Sports – something which perhaps opened the door to ESPN and others. Now it looks like they were just negotiating for a better deal.

With the new streaming service — which could launch next month with the start of the NHL and NBA seasons — sources said fans will pay about $20 a month for access to their home team’s local games through Prime.

While Venu never made sense to me as a $43/month stand-alone service for some sports rights, a $20/month Amazon RSN could make much more sense on top of Prime Video – provided your team is one of the ones offered, of course. If you're in one of those markets and really just care about sports (on top of whatever streaming service you have – likely Netflix and perhaps Prime Video via your household Prime subscription), you could potentially cut the cable cord – well, once the NFL season is over, of course.

Financial terms of the Amazon deal currently under discussion couldn’t immediately be learned. A source said it is not exclusive, allowing Amazon to further expand into live sports streaming by signing deals with other platforms including YouTube.

That bit is slightly confusing – why would Amazon sign a deal with YouTube? – but as Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal, who confirmed the story, makes more clear:

Diamond Sports Group and Amazon remain in conversations that would place local Bally Sports direct-to-consumer apps on Prime Video for as many as 26 teams across the NBA, NHL and MLB, sources confirmed to SBJ. The streams would be non-exclusive – with Roku and Google/YouTube potentially housing the apps, as well – while linear broadcasts of the games would be simulcast on Bally Sports RSNs if Diamond successfully emerges from bankruptcy in the coming months.

This is interesting in that ESPN head Jimmy Pitaro also recently went out of his way to make the point that while his network would love to pick up some regional sports rights, they would only aim to do so in a non-exclusive fashion. This snuffs out any major bidding war potential, of course. So yes, ESPN could potentially do something with these teams/games as well in their own soon-to-come one-sports-streaming-app-to-rule-them-all.

Per Friend's reporting, it almost feels like it's setting up for the NBA to eventually control their own league-wide RSN, just as MLB now wants to (really has to, given the shitshow there). Eventually, this leads to the leagues having their own version of the NFL's Sunday Ticket. And then those leagues could sell the package to one of the streamers – or multiple streamers, I suppose.

Anyway, the battle between ESPN and Amazon to control sports streaming now seems like it's on. It's early, but Amazon has their streaming service in market right now. And these MLB/NBA/NHL games would potentially be added in a matter of months if not weeks. The stand-alone ESPN streamer isn't due until next fall. I suppose Disney could add such games to ESPN+, their other sports streaming service not to be confused with their future sports streaming service even though they both have 'ESPN' in the name, but that seems a step too convoluted, even for Disney.

I like Amazon's moves here, and in sports in general. It feels like they have an actual gameplan – walking away from initial negotiations here only to come back to get more of what they wanted, included. ESPN has a path, but they need to go after it and stop dicking around with Venu and 25 other streaming options.

One more thing from Kosman's report:

Diamond’s Bally’s is also expected to change its name after emerging from bankruptcy. Betting site FanDuel is said to be interested in a naming rights deal, sources said.

"Watch your local team's games on Prime Video via FanDuel Streaming" – it's a mouthful you can basically already hear.

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¹ I was also waiting on another source to back up this story since there had been multiple reports just a couple weeks ago that Amazon had walked away from its deal to help bail out the Diamond Sports regional sports network. Now Sports Business Journal, which first reported on Amazon walking away originally, has confirmed that the talks are back on.