• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 6, 2017

Amazon has joined the hunt, chasing big NFL programming with big money -- $50 million, according to reports, for the live streaming of 10 “Thursday Night Football.” This is around five times what Twitter paid for the games a year ago -- a total of $10 million -- when the NFL first offered up the package.

As Twitter did a year ago, Amazon will run Thursday night games alongside CBS and NBC, sharing the traditional linear TV package of games. Cable TV channel NFL Network simulcast the games with the broadcast networks. CBS and NBC paid a combined $450 million for airing those 10 games on traditional linear TV. 

Kannan Venkateshar, media analyst of Barclays Capital, says: “NFL essentially used Twitter as a proof of concept last year to validate a new source of revenues which, while small in absolute terms, is already showing significant inflation and more importantly, bringing additional bidders into the NFL orbit.”

Google, Twitter and Facebook all competed for this high-value TV franchise for the upcoming season. For its part, Twitter now says it is still committed to live programming.

A big part of Amazon’s push to get the NFL package, says one of its executives, comes in using the big NFL viewership to promote its other content.

For Amazon, there is little doubt TV and entertainment continue to be one of its main retail/business objective -- including its on-demand Amazon Prime Video platform and, perhaps new services, including package of live, linear TV networks.

The big move is seen to be a big signal -- especially in the new premium digital TV-video space that is expanding beyond its video-on-demand roots. This includes new live, linear TV network packages from DirecTV Now, Sling TV, YouTube TV and others.

Barclay’s Venkateshar: “While on one level, Amazon’s entry is just a continuation of the present arrangement albeit with a different company in the mix, we believe Amazon has the potential to be a major disruptor long-term, relative to other OTT entrants.”