Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon
Katherine Taylor | Reuters
Amazon wants to be the exclusive producer of the National Football League for Thursday’s games starting in 2023, but the NFL may decide to keep certain games on the NFL network and take less money from Amazon, according to people familiar with the matter.
Amazon is in talks with the league to pay about $ 1 billion for an entire season of exclusive games outside the local TV markets of the two teams playing, people said, asking not to be named because the talks are private. . Discussions are ongoing and no decision has been made, people said.
Under a new agreement, Amazon would be responsible for all production costs and would still have to pay a local broadcaster to produce the game for domestic markets, because the NFL wants Thursday night’s games to be broadcast on local television in each of the participants. teams’ home markets.
The NFL network, which is usually packaged as part of expensive pay-TV packages, has requirements with pay-TV distributors to carry a certain number of games exclusively. The Wall Street Journal, which previously reported Amazon’s interest, reported Wednesday that NFL Network transactions require the exclusive transmission of five games. As the NFL adds an 18th week, the league could give the NFL enough Saturday games and other cuts to reach the limits of the cable network without entering on Thursday, one of the people said.
However, the NFL may decide to support the value of the NFL network is a higher priority than giving Amazon a full list of games on Thursday. The league is still considering proposals to simultaneously broadcast Thursday’s Amazon games on the NFL or share Thursday’s games between Amazon and the NFL, two of the people said.
Amazon will not pay nearly $ 1 billion anywhere for a full package of games that are not entirely exclusive, people said. Amazon is open to a deal that gets branded games that are streamed simultaneously on the NFL network for less money, people said. It is also open to a package that receives fewer exclusive games for less money.
“This is a pretty important event for the TV industry,” LightShed analyst Rich Greenfield told CNBC today. “The fact that you can now get Thursday night games without local television – no antenna will work if you’re outside domestic markets.”
The deal will be based on Amazon’s three-year deal with the NFL to stream 12 games Thursday in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons on its Prime Video streaming service. That deal allows Amazon to run an exclusive game each season. Last year, it was a Week 16 game between the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers. Fox’s Thursday night football deal ends in 2022 and will not be bought early, according to people familiar with the matter.
The NFL has been cautious about handing over broadcasting rights to streaming services. The league is close to reaching agreements with its current TV partners – Disney, which owns ESPN and ABC; ViacomCBS; Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Fox – for Sunday and Monday night packages.
However, streaming is becoming the dominant form of viewing for millions of Americans and may have global coverage, unlike traditional pay-TV. Several pay-TV distributors have entered into transactions with Amazon Prime Video to make their programming available on set-top boxes, further limiting the friction for tens of millions of Americans who still pay for pay-TV linear packages from operators such as Comcast and AT&T.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is the parent company of CNBC.