Source: Nic Antaya / Getty
Amazon is expanding further out of the world of e-commerce and more into the world of content.
It already has one of the most highly touted streaming services, Prime, which rivals that of Netflix and Hulu, but starting in 2025, it’s stepping it up even more.
The company’s already been hosting Thursday Night Football on its platform and started carrying a Black Friday NFL game last year; beginning next year, it’ll do the same for the NBA.
The two leagues go head to head on Christmas Day –despite the NFL always coming out on top– so now they’re doing it again. However, the NBA game will stream after the NFL game has ended, so there will be no direction ratings competition.
Amazon’s head of U.S. video and live sports sales, Danielle Carney, made the announcement at ADWEEK’s Mediaweek event earlier this week. She spoke about how excited she is to have two premier American sports leading their coverage on both days, as most fans are planted in front of their screens.
The debut is still over a year away, so there aren’t any more details available, but it appears they want to take a few cues from the TNF coverage, which introduced a slew of already-known personalities like Kaylee Hartung, Charissa Thompson, Tony Gonzales, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Andrew Whitworth.
While this group—among many other contributors—gives their sports takes before, during, and after the game, Amazon is ready to up the ante for NBA Black Friday games because shooting in the studio offers even more flexibility.
“When you’re in a studio, you have all these other opportunities for branding, and we’ve never had that before. With the NBA, we’re creating a studio where we will be able to really think big for our advertisers,” Carney said.
Amazon became a rights holder in the NBA’s latest media deal, which allowed them to hold an opening-week doubleheader—just a small portion of the 66 regular season games it will stream.
