Amazon Vice President of Global Sports Video Marie Donoghue spoke at the Sports Business Journal CAA World Congress of Sports about how Amazon’s success streaming Thursday Night Football has exceeded their own expectations.
Video Transcript
– Amazon has hit the ground running with their streaming Thursday Tonight Football package on Prime. Numbers far exceeding expectations and topping NFL Network from a year ago. Today, Amazon’s vice president of global sports video Marie Donahue spoke at the Sports Business Journal CA Congress of Sports Conference and said it even exceeded their own sky-high expectations.
MARIE DONOGHUE: We’re thrilled. Obviously, we’re really happy with the product, with the tech. Everything’s working. Fans are happy. We’re thrilled with our audience numbers. Per Nielsen, we’re averaging already 11 and 1/4 million. We’re up 11% since last year. And most importantly– most tellingly to us, we’re up 67% in the 18 to 34 demographic–
– That’s amazing.
MARIE DONOGHUE: –which is phenomenal. And, no, we’re having a great time. I really think we’ve got– we really respect the fan and respect the game. So we talk a lot about innovation. And we try different things. And we literally started from scratch and looked at it all new. But respecting the fan, we didn’t want the fan to not recognize the game or be disrupted. We wanted the fan to feel more engagement and be delighted.
And I think we’ve struck that balance. And I think some of it is obviously our alternate feeds, what we’re doing with data, and things like that. But I think it’s the talent we hired. We worked really hard. Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit, who are both legends in their own right, but bring something different and special and new chemistry. And I think the studio show we’ve got I think is magic in a bottle right now.
– A strong start for Amazon. I will couch some of that data appears to be a bit inflated because in terms of a pure streaming number, they are including sports bars and restaurants as well as over-the-air television in the home markets that are airing on Thursday Tonight Football. They’ve got a real challenge this week with a stinker between Washington and Chicago. No real stars. Two mediocre teams.
But it has been a huge hit. And I will say that number, 67% up in the demo 18 to 34, that is music to the NFL’s ears and to the NBA’s ears. And the rumor is the report from Front Office Sports that the NBA, Amazon will be a bidder for their next media rights package. Expected to fetch north of $50 billion a year.
– Yeah, Dave. Talks that they’re in those talks when that expires in after the 2024-2025 season. It’s clear that this has been a huge win for Amazon. I think the question, though, at least from an analyst perspective, just what is the return on investment here? Because they’re paying about a billion dollars a year for these NFL rights. When you take a look at the fact that, yes, it has clearly boosted Prime signups. They came out with a number after the first Thursday Tonight Football game, saying that it drew a record number of Prime signups for a three-hour period. That three-hour period, though, being very key.
So in terms of what that actually means here going forward will be very important for Amazon, and also just whether or not they’re able to retain those new Prime subscribers, if these people are just signing up on a monthly basis, so if they do, in fact, continue to use Prime after the NFL season. But, Rachelle, I think from anyone’s standpoint here, this was a huge, I guess, leap here, a huge chance that the NFL took with Amazon, a huge risk that Amazon did take. And it certainly has been paying off, at least up until this point.
– And I will say it’s interesting because Amazon sometimes acts like a startup. They’ll go out and try– let me try brick and mortar stores. If it doesn’t work, they pull back. And as you mentioned, depending on how things are going with Thursday Tonight Football, clearly a success so far. What’s going to happen when football season ends? Are you still going to be able to retain those Prime members when you have to then do something else, perhaps more partnerships? Definitely a step in the right direction. But it’ll be interesting to see how Amazon plans on capitalizing this when the lights go off, for sure.
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