Amazon Wants To Include Live Sports as Part of Prime Membership (geekwire.com) 77
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon's next Prime membership benefit could be the ability to stream live sports. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Amazon is in talks with leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and a handful of others about live game rights. The fact that Amazon wants to stream live sports isn't a new development. But the Journal did have a noteworthy tidbit: Amazon could offer a "premium, exclusive sports package" to those who pay for a $99 per year, or $8.99 per month, Prime membership. Amazon is exploring streaming rights to multiple sports at a variety of levels. The Journal reported that Amazon wanted to exclusively license NBA's League Pass streaming product; it is also reaching out to traditional broadcasters like Univision and ESPN about the content they own but don't end up airing on TV.Amazon was also recently exploring deals with Indian Premier League, a cricket match league. In a recent interview with David Remnick of The New Yorker, Reed Hastings said that one of the most difficult decisions for him has been to not do live sports. He said Netflix doesn't want to move away from movies and TV shows, and only focus on improving the quality of the shows and user experience.
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I agree with OP and say Amazon needs to go one step further. The original thing about Prime was the 2 day shipping. That's all I am really interested in... not their tv shit, streaming shit, sports shit, and probably soon-to-be tax preparation service or whatever they come up with next
Prime needs to be split into two tiers... one for the free shipping, at a reduced cost, and a premium tier with all the other add-on shit.
Re:I don't want to pay for this. (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt that's going to happen. The 2-day shipping is a loss-leader to get you introduced (and hopefully hooked) on the rest of Amazon's ecosystem.
Re:I don't want to pay for this. (Score:4, Interesting)
Part of the reason why we don't have pay-TV is that I do not want to pay a fairly large amount of money for something that I don't have interest in watching. I have even less interest in paying for something like this that also serves ads. Doesn't really matter what it is either.
As I see it there are two extremes in television distribution that establish a gradient. First is the free-to-the-viewer model. This is broadcast TV. The viewer has no choice but to receive ads, but the viewer doesn't pay for content outside of watching ads and pays for nothing short purchase of one's own receiving equipment. The advertiser is the entity that pays for the service in effect. The second is the viewer-paid-ad-free model. The viewer's subscription fee pays for the content delivery and the content and there are no ads.
The gradient lies in between these two positions. Inexpensive pay-TV like conventional cable or satellite requires the viewer to pay for the medium and requires the viewer to put up with ads. In turn the networks sell ads and negotiate with the medium (the "cable company") to have the network available to the viewer. More expensive pay-TV like premium cable or satellite requires the viewer to pay for the medium and to pay for individual networks on top of the base rate.
The problem is when networks like ESPN end up negotiating with the cable companies to where all subscribers pay for this premium network (and I call it that based on the per-subscriber fee required of all viewing households) even though a lot of people don't want to watch the network at all. I don't want to pay $5 - $10 per month because my cable TV company has a bad deal with ESPN where they have to pay for ESPN on my behalf whether or not I want to watch it. Throw on top of that the ads ESPN sells and airs and it's frankly insulting.
If Amazon tries to force Prime into an all-or-nothing proposition like the cable and satellite companies have then I have no reason to bother giving them my money. After all, if I want an all-or-nothing scenario where I'm actively paying for content that I don't want I can get that treatment from existing players. The only way I would consider Prime is if I can choose what I subscribe to. Amazon might have arrangements to the networks funded by the wholly-ad-supported-model like current conventional cable, but I don't have to fork over cash for those. If I don't want ESPN I don't want to pay for it anyway.
I suppose it shows how much a house of cards networks like ESPN are, if they don't have the compulsory model for subscription payments from people that have no interest then they probably wouldn't manage to stay in business.
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Whatever. I use Prime for the free 30 day periods every time they offer it to me and promptly cancel before they start charging. The rest of the time I just do free account and free shipping on everything. My life isn't so disorganised that I can't order things ahead of time and wait the *gasp* 7-10 days for it to arrive. I'm old enough to remember when mail order took 6-8 WEEKS.
Kids these days are just entitled and impatient (but I want it NAAAAAOOOOOWWW!). That's why they have so many developmental issues
Re:I don't want to pay for this. (Score:4, Insightful)
So then what? Prime becomes $150/mo? We're back to cable again.. Live sports are expensive. Since I don't watch it I don't want to pay.
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So then what? Prime becomes $150/mo?
To me, it sounds like this would be some kind of add-on to Amazon Prime. But I can't say for sure.
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If people want to watch live sports, they ought to pay for it themselves. It can be a separate package, or a separate product, I already pay enough for sports through taxes.
Re:I don't want to pay for this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, this is a good deal for sports fans if and only of the sports premium is optional.
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As a sports fan I don't see how this is a good deal. Right now I can watch all of ESPN's content that isn't air on TV with the ESPN app. If Amazon buys the streaming rights I will have to pay an extra fee to Amazon to watch it. I also will have to keep paying ESPN indirectly through my cable company because Amazon isn't trying to buy the rights to the better games that are aired on TV. So to keep seeing everything I watch now I will end up paying both companies.
In order to watch sports on the ESPN app you have to have service with a provider. So nothing would change theoretically. I know that the ESPN app asks me to login to my provider periodically.
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That's only if you're trying to watch ESPN/2/NEWS/Classic. If you're watching ESPN3, you can watch that for free. That's where Ultimate Frisbee, Kabbadi, Cricket, Rugby, Independent league baseball, etc are shown.
Not true. You still have to have a subscription with a video provider or Internet provider who is paying ESPN for access to ESPN3. If you don't have to sign in, that means that your ISP is paying ESPN. ESPN has whitelisted your IP address so you don't need to sign in.
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As a sports fan who chooses not to get screwed over by the cable or satellite TV companies, I don't have access to the ESPN app. Paying a couple bucks a month extra to Amazon for live sports would be well worth it to me vs paying for a cable subscription.
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As a sports fan who chooses not to get screwed over by the cable or satellite TV companies, I don't have access to the ESPN app. Paying a couple bucks a month extra to Amazon for live sports would be well worth it to me vs paying for a cable subscription.
It will probably be like current streaming packages. Those games that people like ESPN has exclusive rights to will be blacked out.
This already happens if you have NBA League Pass. Those games that ESPN or TNT has exclusive rights to are blacked out even from video streaming on the official NBA app with the highest level of package. The NBA app lets you stream audio from one of the local radio stations broadcasting the game in return.
So you'll still never be able to see your team play the Cavs, Lakers, or
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Personally, I am a true sports fan, such that I own equipment and go play them with friends instead of sitting around watching other people play.
That's how I play too.
Re:I don't want to pay for this. (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, it's a good deal for sports fans if everybody else helps pay for it.
Agreed. While I suppose anything's possible, I cannot imagine that Amazon could keep the price of a Prime membership at $99 and ADD live sports (unless it gutted existing stuff included in Prime). Sports channels usually cost more than any other service in existing cable packages -- ESPN alone now charges about $7 per month from cable companies from subscribers. (Note that the MEDIAN fee per channel is about 15 cents.) And ESPN has huge ad revenue too. Is Prime going to make widespread use of ads too?
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Too bad fucker, Amazon says that everyone must pay for sports, even though most of you will never watch them. That way a few of us who will get what seems like a good price subsidized by the rest of you and Amazon gets to promote Prime as having another "feature". And the National Felons League and the rest of the steroid abusers get more money.
Of course, they could just say that it is included "free" in the price of Prime and not raise the price of Prime today (raise it later or take something else away).
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As someone who doesn't care about sports, I think this is a great thing personally. I want to see the cable companies increase their "sports fees" for TV, and I really like the idea of Amazon building that into Amazon Prime.
I'm a cord-cutter, so I don't have cable TV, only cable internet. So I really like the idea of the cablecos charging all the TV-watchers for sports, even if they don't watch them. This helps keep my internet service bill low. As long as the TV-watchers are subsidizing the sports fans
Re: I don't want to pay for this. (Score:2)
Cord cutter's dream! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the last difficult part of being a cord cutter (if one cares about this kind of content). One can get just about any other set of content from streaming if it's available at all (there are always holes, mind you). I don't envy the rights negotiations, as they are a mess, but it would solve a major problem in the lineup of content.
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This is the last difficult part of being a cord cutter (if one cares about this kind of content). One can get just about any other set of content from streaming if it's available at all (there are always holes, mind you). I don't envy the rights negotiations, as they are a mess, but it would solve a major problem in the lineup of content.
You're forgetting one huge hurdle when it comes to being a cord cutter: spouses who watch HGTV, the cooking channel, the Hallmark Channels (yes, there is more than one), and all of those "Judge Judy" shows (there are several copycat versions). Much of that content is only available from cable.
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Requires authenticating to a multichannel provider (Score:2)
HGTV has its own streaming service
The link "Sign In to Your Provider" at the top of this page [hgtv.com] makes me think HGTV streaming is yet another "TV Everywhere" that requires authenticating a subscription to a package on a traditional multichannel pay television (that is, cable or satellite) provider that includes HGTV. The FAQ [hgtv.com] backs this up.
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SlingTV may be the option for you if you're in the US (or can get a good US-based VPN) service.
We get all the channels we want. Just need local news, which I'm working on with an OTA network box.
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That's easy to avoid: don't marry someone who watches a lot of TV.
As a now-divorced man, I simply will not date anyone who's a big TV watcher. It's an entirely different lifestyle than what I lead, so someone like that would not be compatible with me.
Luckily, it's not that hard these days to find women who don't watch TV (or much TV). One big clue: if they're thin, they probably don't watch much TV.
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Eventually I gave up and now I get my hockey through other channels: the sports bar down the road
Which doesn't work for hockey fans whose kids are also hockey fans in states with "too young to drink means too young to enter" laws.
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I've been contemplating cord cutting and sports, specifically Big Ten Network, was the second to last stumbling block. Then found that Playstation Vue has BTN and many other sports channels so that roadblock is gone. Now just need to figure out DVR options so the wife can watch the damn soaps.
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Please Dont (Score:1)
Please don't. Live sport are extremely expensive and just push up the price for us that don't give a monkeys.
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I agree.
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More prospective subscribers give a monkeys than don't.
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Yeah, if I can finally start watching my team play again after cutting the cable, I will sign up for Prime. So far I've resisted, but I will get Prime if they get the "right-for-me" sports.
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I don't want my sports covered up by my welcome mat.
I'm forced to pay but get no content (Score:2)
When they rose the price of Prime from £49 to £79 and bundled in Prime Video I wasn't all that happy and until Grand Tour was released I had yet in the years since that increase to find a program I wanted to watch on there. I'd check, see if it was on Amazon or Netflix before often purchasing it on Google Play.
But 90% of the time that a show is actually on there it's not included. I wanted to watch Stargate SG1 the other day and they're charging £2.50 per episode, no offer to buy by the se
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That was the reason I cancelled my Prime Video subscription. OK, the selection is crap as well but I'd probably have lived with that if it wasn't all mixed in with the non-free stuff. The killer was that some seasons are free and others are non-free within the same show.
One problem (Score:2)
As a sports fan, I would be OK with Amazon offering live sports, as long as it doesn't require non-sports fans to subsidize my enjoyment. But that's a little bit like me saying because I don't like the Gilmore Girls and Two Broke Girls, I shouldn't have to subsidize the people that watch those programs.
But Amazon streaming video, including live sporting events, has one big issue to iron out, and that's Google. Right now, I pay to be able to watch giant men give each other brain damage on my home televisio
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And watch every service take 200 times longer to reach the market as the provider has to negotiate a sublicense with exclusive licensees under contracts that date back well over a decade, to before even 1.5 Mbps home Internet access was in wide use.
Think about it: Would it be a good thing to ban something in the United States because it happens to be unavailable in, say, Rwanda?
Price will have to go in some areas local rsn's (Score:2)
Price will have to go in some areas local rsn's have high costs. /mo just for 1 team and in all the other area RSN's and it's about $8-$15 /mo
Sports net LA is $4.50-$5.00
CSN Chicago is about $3-$5 /mo and if the cubs start there own RSN they may want $2-$4 /mo.
A la carte please (Score:4, Interesting)
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Baseball already offers an a la carte option, though at a price higher than you suggest. It's called buying a ticket.
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No. But airfare and lodging are also available a la carte.
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That's effectively what he's asking for. A ticket to watch a given game via streaming.
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$2-$3 a game no try more like $12.95 - $15.95 a game or even $16.99 - $19.99 a game.
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Wouldn't that be expesnive compared to season's payment? I don't mind if both options were available.
Licensing (Score:2)
I'd like to know how they expect to pay for licensing all of this sports content without severely impacting the price. Currently if you want to watch hockey online, your only option is NHL Center Ice. It costs $220 for the season ($18 per month), and you don't get playoff or locally broadcast (including cable) games. To add something like a major pro sport onto the pricing that people expect from Amazon Prime, the league owners would have to drastically change the way they do things. Not to mention that t
So a computer literate audience... (Score:2)
So a computer literate audience... and the want to sell them sports?
I'm guessing this is to appeal to, what? Brogrammers?
MLB will ruin this (Score:2)
The dinosaurs in charge of Major League Baseball will almost certainly insist on only allowing streaming access to games outside of your local market - basically the same thing as they enforce with their MLB.tv product.
The fundamental problem is that a huge chunk of most team's (and the leagues') profits come from cable tv deals, so MLB insists on pretending that the cable tv market is still thriving. I can only offer one data point, but I decided a couple years ago it wasn't worth paying an extra $65-$70 a
Long term thinking (Score:2)
As a cord cutter, yes please.
As a sports fan, EXTRA yes please.
Slight tangent, but one of the problems facing several sports today is ridiculously over-inflated salaries:
-This leads to rule changes to prevent injury: can't have your bazillion dollar player getting hurt.
-And that's gonna pump up owner salaries... can't have "just" a multi-millionaire owner presiding over millionaire players... no no no
-It leads to god awful sponsorship deals by the players: "Eat Papa Johns pizza, I swear it's not garbage
Football (Score:2)
Bah, wake me up when Amazon broadcasts the World Cup with non-US English commentators. Then, I'll be interested.
This is why I cut the cord in the first place. (Score:2)
I cancelled my satellite, because I got tired of subsidizing all of the sports fans. Their movie and TV show catalog is pretty pathetic as is. And more and more, I'm not even getting the two day shipping I was promised. If Amazon goes this route, I'll cancel the first time I see an increase in the membership costs. I was already on the fence as is.
email or call Amazon support (Score:1)