Amazon Reports Increased Streaming of NFL Games

MediaPost recently published this article reporting that Amazon’s viewership of live-streamed Thursday night NFL games is up 22% to 14.7M viewers so far this season.  For reference, this averages to ~2M streamers per game as compared to ~13M TV viewers per game.  These streams are differentiated from traditional TV broadcast by offering alternate audio commentary from an all-female duo.  Amazon is streaming these games on their Twitch platform which is primarily used for eSports streaming.  Amazon has already signed a deal with the NFL for streaming rights for the 2019 season.  This should represent a win-win for the NFL and Amazon.  For the NFL, this helps them stay relevant in an increasingly mobile viewing world and adding these viewers should help Amazon strengthen their Twitch platform and provides additional opportunity for new advertising revenue.

Sports marketing tends to be inherently popular with students but it might be worth talking about how this illustrates distribution channel strategy.  While we often think about the channel in terms of retailers, wholesalers, and warehousing, channel decisions apply just as much to digital services as they do to physical goods.