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Report: Amazon Prime Video Realigns Focus to Live Sports Monetization

Report Amazon Prime Video Realigns Focus to Live Sports Monetization

Amazon Prime Video is said to be shifting from its earlier strategy of focusing on content towards live sports, which shows its turn of thought around the type of content it brings to users. According to The Information, the streaming service is seeking to change course away from presenting itself as the home for original television shows or movies. Amazon's shift in priorities comes, however, as it attempts to meet its own internal corporate profit targets.

Amazon Prime Video Shifts Focus to Live Sports for Revenue Growth

At a time when live sports have been a money making experience for streaming platforms, this realignment strikes a cord. Live sports appeal as an effective market for targeted advertisements generating with real time viewership and great audience engagement. This has caused a number of streaming companies, including Amazon, to search for live sports in order to build ad revenue.

It’s no coincidence this comes at a time when the streaming industry, whether it’s for TV or movies, is expanding notionally. But as competition grows more intense, many services are relying on live events to differentiate themselves from rivals and increase their financial performance. The move by Amazon mirrors a larger industry effort to build out more live sports content to take advantage of surging demand for sports content media.

Live sports could be a key ingredient in Amazon’s path to achieving higher year over year revenue targets. Prime Video could get more subscribers, boost engagement, and take in huge ad revenue by providing exclusive sports content. The benefits could help partially counter Amazon’s streaming investments in original content, which have been a signature of its streaming strategy.

Amazon realigns as it joins a growing list of streaming platforms pushing live sports. Football fans are loyal and much more engaged viewers, so Amazon’s move can give competition advantage. The new phase in Prime Video's growth sees the platform attempt to balance original content with lucrative sports live offerings.

Amazon Shifts Prime Video Strategy to Achieve Profitability by 2025

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has set an ambitious target for Prime Video: They want to achieve profitability by the end of 2025. The strategy, according to a recent report, is to meet this goal through a focus of the live sports, the company said. With Amazon’s focus squarely on driving higher engagement and piecing out more revenue streams, the company pivoted towards live events in a bid to grow Prime Video’s financial performance.

One part of this strategy has included Amazon’s already heavy spend of securing broadcasting rights for major sports leagues. According to the company, it invests about $3 billion a year to secure exclusive deals for high profile sports events, including the NBA and NFL. This huge investment in sports content by Amazon demonstrates its certainty about the future capacity of such sports content to contribute to streaming service's revenues and profits.

In July, Amazon became the first to sign an 11 year, $77 billion deal to broadcast NBA games, together with partners such as ESPN and NBCUniversal. The deal also moves Amazon into a major step in its long term plan to underwrite exclusive sports content and drive more subscribers to its Prime Video platform. And with such high profile agreements, Amazon is positioning itself as a big player in the worlds of sports broadcasting.

Furthermore, Amazon tries to monetize Prime Video directly. The company started to offer ads in its streaming service last year, a shift in tune with its ambition to increase ad revenue. By introducing ads accompanied with exclusive sports content, Prime Video will become more profitable and generate extra revenue for Amazon overall.

It suggests a significant point in Amazon’s larger strategy: the push to make Prime Video profitable by 2025. As it is reshaping its approach to streaming with a combination of exclusive sports rights, increased ad revenue, and a shift towards live content, Amazon is much better positioned to compete, at least in its chosen niche. If successful, the company has the potential to ramp up disruption in the streaming industry in the near to medium term.

Amazon and Netflix Race for Live Sports as Streaming Priorities Shift

However, Amazon’s biggest streaming rival, Netflix, too, has been busy with its own plays to get into live sports. Netflix has recently lined up deals to air high profile live events like NFL Christmas Day games, a boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, and WWE RAW events. The fact that Netflix is making these deals says something about Netflix's desire to use live sports as a pivotal piece of its streaming service, putting it on equal footing with Amazon's own outlay for sports.

Amazon’s live sports focus has been ramping up, and as it does so, it’s also revisiting its take on original content. Shortly after a planning meeting in 2022, Amazon began commissioning fewer film and TV projects after reportedly having commissioned Amazon’s entertainment team. From sources, eight producers working with the company who spoke to the tribune said there is a clear cutback in the number of original TV shows and movies in the works.

That is one part of Amazon’s plan to turn around profitability for Prime Video by shifting away from original content and toward live sports. With broadcasting rights for major sports leagues and events, Amazon is attempting to attract high engagement users of live viewers and yet another revenue stream through ads and subscriptions. That’s the kind of budget that the company will spend (together with advertising revenue) on original content, movies, TV shows and live sports, a sum that is now poised to increase in that amount as well.

At this stage this is a strategic shift in the midst of blistering competition among streaming giants. Both are poised to dominate the space as Netflix moves to add to its growing live sports offerings and Amazon pursues exclusive rights to DirecTV's sports channels. Other platforms looking to attract new subscribers, such as Disney+ and Hulu, have also ramped up their live sports investments as Amazon does.

The European Commission meanwhile is pushing social media platforms including X, Meta and TikTok to undergo a ‘stress test’ before German elections. The goal of this test is to keep these platforms on their toes when it comes to combatting disinformation and serve as another load of pressure into the crowded media environment, which includes streaming services like Amazon Prime Video that could be caught in the regulatory firing line too.

Achaoui Rachid
Achaoui Rachid
Hello, I'm Rachid Achaoui. I am a fan of technology, sports and looking for new things very interested in the field of IPTV. We welcome everyone. If you like what I offer you can support me on PayPal: https://paypal.me/taghdoutelive Communicate with me via WhatsApp : ⁦+212 695-572901
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