After destroying both the ebook and audiobook markets, Amazon has set it sights on further reducing NFL viewership:
After steamrolling the bookstore industry, monopolizing online retail, taking a stab at dominating the pharmacy business and not that far from muscling out the competition and becoming the dominant player in cloud, Amazon is set to dominate yet another market: NFL viewership.
The WSJ reports that the National Football League is on the verge of signing new rights deals with media partners that could see Amazon.com carry many games exclusively and TV networks pay as much as double their current rate, plunging NFL viewership notwithstanding.
According to the new agreements, which could be in place as early as next week, TV deals for the league’s Sunday and Monday franchises with Fox, CBS, NBC and ESPN are likely to run for as long as 11 years, they said. ESPN’s deal would go into effect after the 2021-22 season while the Fox, CBS and NBC agreements would kick in after the 2022-23 season.
But it is the NFL’s deal with Amazon that is of most interest: it would result in a significant number of Thursday night games being available exclusively on its Prime Video platform and “represent the league’s deepest foray into streaming”, WSJ sources said. And in order to lock even more Prime Video viewers, those games wouldn’t be available on traditional television outside of the local markets of the two teams playing.
While it hasn’t been confirmed yet that the replacement of the Washington Redskins’ cheerleading squad with a nameless gay men’s Chippendale dance troupe was dictated by Amazon, it appears likely that the Minnesota Vikings and the Kansas City Chiefs will be terminated from the league for racism, while the New England Patriots have already received an email from Amazon informing them that their games will not be televised due to their extremist identitarianism.