Amazon Prime Video goes for more streaming rights to sporting events

The Bango Latam Consumer Survey consultancy highlights that 30% of streaming subscribers in Mexico pay for on-demand sports services, which positions the country as one of the most avid markets in the region. In addition, the Research and Markets firm projects that the global sports streaming market will reach a value of $87 billion by 2028.

It is thanks to this that the company has created a team dedicated to exclusively exploring sports properties that may be relevant to its catalog and from that develop a strategy to acquire a league or team.

“The idea is clear: increase the most sought-after sports content and soccer is one of them, as well as other closely followed leagues, although for now there is nothing concrete,” Tejero said in an interview with Expansión.

Amazon, so far, has leagues such as the NBA, NFL, Formula 1, UEFA Champions League, Major League Baseball (MLB) and Liga MX with Club Guadalajara games.

The migration of sporting events to streaming is a strategy increasingly adopted by companies worldwide, in response to the way audiences consume content today. The transition to digital allows fans to enjoy football matches on their mobile devices and access them more conveniently and flexibly.

This trend also gives companies the opportunity to reach a broader and more diverse audience, as streaming transcends geographic barriers and allows viewers in different locations to be reached.

For example, like Amazon Prime, ViX – TelevisaUnivision’s streaming platform – has acquired the broadcast rights of Liga MX and even has almost the majority. This has been carried out through a strategic alliance with Fox Sports México. While Max is another of the platforms that has won leagues such as the Champions League or the UEFA Champions.

Acquiring party rights: the new problem

Sports events have established themselves as the new offer that differentiates streaming platforms, but also as a new business opportunity for companies in other niches. TV is one of these examples, whose business has its origins in betting, but has now expanded its service possibilities with the addition of leagues such as the Champions League and the men’s and women’s MX League.

But the integration of new competitors into the sports streaming vertical has generated a new problem: saturating broadcast rights. Tomás Tejero assured that access to sports rights has become “one of the most sought-after and demanded things,” resulting in an almost titanic task to acquire certain leagues or sporting events.

The manager says that the first thing the sports content acquisition team has to review is to verify that the transmission rights are available because various teams currently have exclusivity or long-term contracts.

“We almost always have to make an equation about how much (the broadcast rights) cost and if it is something we can acquire and this sometimes makes it difficult to get hold of some games,” Tejero said.

Regulatory experts had previously commented to Expansion that the transmission of a Liga MX match depends completely on the soccer teams, as they are the owners of those rights, and therefore they can decide to sign contracts with television stations and streaming platforms.

However, to face this new challenge, Amazon Prime has promoted a strategy, little used in streaming, based on alliances with its competitors. The plan is simple, Amazon Prime Video allows its base users to access other platforms such as ViX or Max for an extra cost, so that subscribers can consume more sports on the same platform.

“This business model allows us to increase the supply of sports content without having to wait for those rights to be available on the market or having to make a larger outlay if the numbers don’t give us them,” acknowledged the director of Amazon Prime.

advertising

Growing demand for sports broadcast rights has forced streaming platforms to invest more, the cost of which could be passed on to consumers. However, Tejero suggests that advertising can be an alternative to avoid higher costs for audiences.

Since April, Amazon Prime has joined the club of inserting advertising in streaming as a way to make the streaming business profitable and now with the commitment to greater sports content it is possible for consumers to see more advertising during the transmission of a game.

“This is in that spirit of better monetizing what we are offering in terms of content. Doing it this way can help us generate additional resources to continue investing in more content,” says the manager.