Amazon, after major rental, is experimenting with sports media strategy: interview
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos was discovered in the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's February Super Bowl booth, the media world exploded with expectation of Amazon's imminent dominance of sports media.
FILE PHOTO: Amazon logo is seen at the company's logistics center in Boves, France, May 13, 2019. REUTERS / Pascal Rossignol / Filfoto
But two years after the first dabbling in live sports streaming has Amazon Men to Determine a strategy as it continues to experiment and analyze consumer behavior, said Marie Donoghue, Vice President of Global Sports Video, to Reuters.
"We're literally on the first day of sports, so we learn and experiment," said Donoghue in New York this week in his first interview after she took over the sports media division of the world's largest online store last fall.
The arrival of Donoghue, an almost twenty-year-old veteran of the Walt Disney Cos ESPN cable network, who was responsible for the show including the 30 & 30; series and OJ: Made in America, & # 39; signaled a new level of seriousness to the Amazon hunt for live sports.
While the real impact of her arrival is still to be seen, there has been no talk of a major technology acquisition of live sports such as Amazon, Facebook Inc ( FB.O ), Twitter Inc (). TWTR.N ) and Alphabet Incs ( GOOGL.O ) YouTube threatens to loosen TV grips on one of the last remaining reasons to pay for live TV.
Technical companies and startup digital platforms – like DAZN, who agreed to pay Canelo Alvarez at least $ 365 million for five years in October, the richest contract in sports history – are also seen as increasing the cost of media rights when large contracts begin to come up for renewal in 2021.
Will Amazon lead the package into pursuing streaming rights for live sports? "We're not talking about specific rights … of course, but also because we're just not sure yet," Donoghue said.
Since 2017, Amazon has upgraded digital rights to some of England's Premier League football games, the US Open Tennis Championships in the UK and three seasons of Thursday Night Football, among others.
Donoghue said today's focus is on how to enable Amazon Prime subscribers to control almost every aspect of their viewing experience, including how, when, and where they look.
As streaming service, "we don't have to earn the same content in the same way as everyone," she said.
To find out which sports products are successful and what to offer next, Amazon analyzes market research and own sewing data, as well as consumers' use of the X-ray tool to dig in details about the show.
It also gathers Thursday night football on its Twitch video game streaming platform, which has an interactive extension that allows viewers to predict game development, including who they think will win.
"We see it all," said Donoghue. "We want to use live sports to value Prime customers."
Reporting by Hilary Russ, Editing by Franklin Paul
