Amazon's interest in streaming live sports is just beginning to take off

There is a growing buzz among observers in the sports media space that Amazon's interest in streaming live sports is about to explode. Their entry into the NBA rights business made noise in July, when the league announced it would partner with Amazon Prime, NBC/Universal and ABC/Disney at the expense of its longstanding relationship with TNT.

Apparently that was just the beginning.

Amazon first acquired sports rights in April 2017, when it signed a $50 million deal with the NFL. Seven years later, "Thursday Night Football" on Amazon Prime is the tip of a global iceberg that includes Monday Night Hockey in Canada, Premier League football in the U.K., and the UEFA Champions League in the U.K., Germany and Italy, among other sports properties.

Richard Deitsch reported Tuesday in The Athletic that "Amazon is going to be a major player in the next NHL deal in Canada, and I have no doubt the league wants that to happen."

Amazon has money, to be sure, but so does Disney, NBC/Universal, Fox, CBS, Warner Bros. Discovery, and others with their foot in the live-sports door. Where is Amazon's momentum coming from?

David Levy, who recently left his position as an executive with Turner Sports, told Puck's John Ourand on "The Varsity" podcast that he believes "Amazon is going to be the winner in the sports space."

The reasons, as Levy sees it, go back to Amazon's business model and its immense cache of user data. If any of its new streaming ventures experience the kind of fits and starts that Netflix endured when its recent stream of the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight experienced buffering issues, it can weather the setback in a way its competition cannot. Sports broadcasting is one (small) part of the Amazon empire.

Moreover, Amazon's unparalleled ability to insert dynamic ads into live sports programming, then integrate those ads into its omnipresent online marketplace, goes beyond anything its competition can do.

"You buy all your goods and services through Amazon," Levy said. "They have a tremendous amount of data on you, the consumer. Turner Broadcasting doesn't have that kind of data, NBC doesn't have that kind of data ... Netflix doesn't have that kind of data."

As an example, Levy said, "let's say John, you bought batteries six months ago, and Amazon knows that you bought batteries six months ago, and batteries only last six months. So in five months and 29 days, they're going to send you an ad in NFL football because you're watching. It's going to say, hey, John, do you need batteries or a Duracell ad will show up because you now need batteries, okay?

"That's the kind of power and the information that NBC, CBS and Fox can't do. That dynamic ad insertion is going to be a huge game changer in the industry. And you can only do it if you're on the internet within a streaming service."

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