Amazon’s expanding sports content library may eventually have its own home. According to The Information, the company is developing a new standalone streaming app to streamline Prime Video and better promote its partnerships with the NFL, Premier League, and New York Yankees. The news follows statements from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who mentioned live sports content as one of the areas where the business intends to continue spending money even as it cuts expenses elsewhere.
The Information was unable to learn when Amazon plans to release the app or whether the company intends to charge a fee for access to Prime Video’s sports content. Amazon may potentially opt to discontinue the app, according to the site.
It’s not as simple as you may assume to determine if Amazon should build a distinct sports app. On the one hand, Prime Video could certainly benefit from some decluttering. Even after Amazon recently revamped the platform’s UI to make it “less cluttered and overwhelming,” finding content on the service can be difficult due to the site’s combination of streaming and video-on-demand content.
An independent app, on the other hand, would put additional pressure on Amazon to secure valuable content. Furthermore, the expense of sports materials has skyrocketed in recent years. According to reports, Amazon pays around $1 billion per year for exclusive streaming rights to the NFL’s Thursday Night Football package. Google reportedly agreed to pay between $2.1 billion and $2.2 billion for the league’s Sunday Ticket package earlier this month. A standalone app with its own subscription tier would also make Prime Video’s role as a generator of Prime subscriptions more complicated. Amazon may decide that the benefits of developing a separate app are not worth the tradeoff.
