Amazon Wants To Create “New Sports Holiday For NFL Fans” On Black Friday, As Streaming Audiences Mushroom — Cannes Lions
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The future of sport for fans and advertisers alike lies in streaming, according to Marie Donoghue, VP Global Sports Video at Amazon, as she offered a jaw-dropping statistic to support her case at a Cannes Lions event charting the evolution of live sports viewing.
“By 2026, 136 million fans will be streaming sports,” she quoted from New Marketer. “It’s the present and it’s the future. It’s a great opportunity to bring great content, convenience and value to fans, and for advertisers to interact and engage.
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“Viewers are younger, more affluent and spend a lot more time with the game. A lot of our audience wasn’t even watching NFL on other services.”
Donogue oversees all of Prime Video’s global sports video and was pivotal in last year’s launch of Thursday Night Football. She explained that the focus has remained on the fan since then. “We didn’t want to be different for the sake of being different. We needed to create a broadcast that worked. [That’s] not always easy on streaming, you needed to find it easily. Then we added alternate broadcasts and prime vision with data overlays. But it’s all about the fan.”
Now, Amazon has ambitious plans to further tap into the booming market. Donaghue mentioned the prospect of tying Black Friday to the NFL game that same afternoon — “it’s an opportunity to create a new sports holiday for fans.”
Unsurprisingly, her fellow speakers on a sports-themed panel were equally enthusiastic about the new global audiences streaming platforms are able to reach.
Matt Brabants, SVP, Head of International Content Partnerships, NBA, told the session: “For us it’s all about accessibility, innovation and customization. We have a global brand, we have fans all around the world accessing content in time zones and on different devices. What can provide the most accessibility possible?”
He said NBA would be looking to expand its offering of local language feeds, and figuring out how to provide new features to make the game more personal to each fan. He also referred to the NBA’s launch of a streaming service in Brazil this year.
“Trying to link sporting stories to commercial opportunities around advertisers is something Prime Video has helped us tap into in Brazil, which was previously a lot harder with media companies. We can add scale, and provide ads for individual viewers. These are the types of technological innovation that is not just going to make the broadcast more interesting, but also more commercially relevant.”
Two sports legends-turned-pundits gave their personal experience of moving away from legacy media broadcasting to the streaming platforms.
Tony Gonzalez, Hall of Fame tight end and now postgame analyst for Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football coverage, recognized that streaming viewing represents a big change for many.
“The biggest fear is, this is not normally how I watch the game. But you have all these different options: you can see the play-calls, so if you’re a hardcore fan, you can see the plays, how fast the players are running, automatic replay, different angles. It takes your viewing experience to a whole new level. I nerded out when I saw it. I would have loved to have had this growing up.”
Celebrated footballing great Clarence Seedorf shared his enthusiasm for the advances in technology propelled by streaming in the UEFA Champions League.
He said: “People have been used to a certain formula for so many years, so anything new is a challenge. Will I understand it? As a pundit, many times technology is a support tool, not just for those playing the game, but it’s a nice way to engage. You can feel, get feedback on the spot, there are so many important aspects.”
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