In keeping with a current report from The Data, Amazon is growing a standalone app for watching sports activities. This transfer indicators Amazon’s continued push in the direction of investing in its Prime Video platform and dwell sports activities content material. CEO Andy Jassy lately referred to dwell sports activities as “a novel asset” that Amazon plans to proceed investing in.
At the moment, Amazon’s dwell sports activities choices embrace unique rights to the NFL’s Thursday Evening Soccer, in addition to some Premier League soccer matches and Yankees baseball video games. Moreover these dwell video games, Amazon has additionally invested in different sports activities content material, reminiscent of authentic sports activities discuss reveals on each Prime Video and its ad-supported streaming service, Freevee.
Nevertheless, it’s unclear when Amazon would possibly launch the standalone sports activities app or whether or not it can cost individually for entry to Prime Video’s sports activities content material. The Data notes that the corporate might also select to shelve the app altogether.
Execs and cons of a devoted sports activities app for Amazon
Whereas the enchantment of a devoted sports activities app from Amazon is evident, the choice to launch one is just not essentially easy. On one hand, decluttering Prime Video can be a welcome change for a lot of customers. Regardless of the current redesign geared toward making the platform much less overwhelming, it could actually nonetheless be troublesome to navigate as a result of mixture of streaming and video-on-demand content material. A standalone sports activities app might make it simpler for sports activities followers to seek out and entry the content material they’re in search of.
However, Amazon might want to weigh the prices and advantages of making and sustaining a separate app for sports activities content material. This new app would require Amazon to safe extra sports activities content material, and the price of sports activities content material has considerably elevated lately. Amazon at present pays roughly $1 billion yearly for unique streaming rights to the NFL’s Thursday Evening Soccer package deal. The corporate can even want to contemplate whether or not it makes extra sense to proceed integrating sports activities content material into Prime Video or if a standalone app can be a simpler method to showcase its partnerships and appeal to new subscribers.