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Amazon has won the rights to stream Thursday night National Football League games by quintupling the price Twitter paid for the last season's games:
Amazon is getting into the live sports broadcasting business. The retailing giant, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring content for its subscription video business, has won the rights to stream "Thursday Night Football" games for this upcoming season.
Sources confirmed to ESPN that the deal to stream the games, which will be simulcast on the NFL Network and either CBS or NBC, is worth $50 million, up from the $10 million that Twitter paid for the streaming in the deal last season.
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Amazon Scoops NFL Streaming Deal Away From Twitter for $50 Million
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I consider the day misspent that I am not either charged with a crime,
or arrested for one.
-- "Ratsy" Tourbillon
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @10:51AM (6 children)
What a complete waste of money.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday April 06 2017, @12:55PM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @01:01PM
I know. It is great fun looking down one's nose at people; it makes us feel much better about ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @02:56PM
> What a complete waste of money.
Exactly like every other form of entertainment.
We should all just be robots!
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 06 2017, @03:01PM (1 child)
What a complete waste of money.
To me, yeah. To sports fans, absolutely not. Everybody has their preferred interests, hobbies, etc. To some people, all video games are a "complete waste of money." To some people, eating a dinner out that costs more than $20/person is a "complete waste of money." To some people, attending a rock concert of a major band is a "complete waste of money." To some people, buying a new fancy sports car instead of a used reliable family car is a "complete waste of money."
But other people love sports or video games or fancy dinners or rock concerts or sports cars or whatever. Who am I to judge?
But you do have a point, I think -- in that sports have traditionally been a huge money sink for cable TV. For decades, people who couldn't care less about sports have been forced to subsidize them in their cable packages -- and they are the most expensive channels of all. So, to me the issue becomes: if Amazon starts paying out for live sports content, that's their choice -- but if it becomes a major monetary investment, it should be a separate fee from their other subscription packages. If people want to pay an extra X dollars/month to stream live sports, that's their choice. But given how much control ESPN, etc. has had over cable stuff for years (around $20/month in your cable bill recently, according to this [time.com]), those sorts of fees could have a huge impact on Amazon's $100ish/year Prime streaming package now.
Oh, and this isn't just a concern for a small number of people. A poll last year [time.com] concluded that a majority of cable subscribers would dump ESPN to save money on their monthly bills. Most people aren't willing to pay that much for sports or aren't interested at all.
Let's hope Amazon starts making better choices with "bundling" than the cable companies did. I'm all in favor of services offering a "sports package" for streaming or whatever, as long as they keep an option for those who don't want to pay the ridiculously high sports fees for stuff they don't even watch.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday April 06 2017, @03:41PM
Yes, I'm interested in Amazon's approach to the content. I imagine you will need Prime but then pay an additional fee per event, similar to the premium movies that I never watch. My concern is if they increase the base cost of Prime to cover this investment - currently the description on their Prime homepage makes it seem like NFL is part of the deal and I don't want to pay for it.
Then again I avoid Prime to begin with, and buy it month to month only when the 10.99 Prime membership is cheaper than rush shipping. Another price increase would just have me using Amazon's competitors more often.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:27PM
Don't be so negative...
Brain doctors get to learn a lot from former NFL players.