Why is Amazon Prime Video getting into football TV rights in France?
In June this year, football fans were very surprised to see that the LFP (French football league) had awarded 80% of the TV rights to Ligue 1 matches until 2024. This has never been seen before for these football fans!
Their initial idea? To promise to sell any book, anywhere! Incredible, isn’t it?
Indeed, Amazon’s streaming platform had already launched itself in sports a few months earlier by obtaining the broadcasting rights of Rolland Garros.
So yes, thanks to Prime Video, it was now possible to follow a Rolland Garros match between two episodes of your favorite series. The FFT (French Tennis Federation) has given Amazon Prime Video the rights to broadcast this prestigious competition, much to the regret of the historical broadcasting channel of this event: France 2. So perhaps we can see this change as a new beginning? It is certainly the beginning of a new digital media era
Their initial idea? To promise to sell any book, anywhere! Incredible, isn’t it?
So why sport?
If we look at the sports sector, we can see that the sanitary crisis marked the end of professional sports and therefore a suspension of rights for certain TV broadcasters. We can then think that Amazon Prime Video has seized this opportunity to increase its visibility … a strategy that looks pretty winning for the moment!
So, to try to understand this strategy of Amazon Prime Video, we have several answers:
Firstly: to face a tough competition. In fact, in SVOD, this asset seems to be rather strong to succeed in asserting itself against very powerful competitors like Netflix or Disney +. It must be admitted that in terms of content, the latter two are hard to beat (even if Amazon Prime Video has nothing to be ashamed of).
So here, we understand that the strategy to respond to this very competitive market is: diversify to better reign. So, what better way to do this than to diversify into sports, which is by far the most unifying sector! An incredible strategy to gain attractiveness and attract many new subscribers.
Also, this sports innovation can be seen as a new media area. Indeed, the traditional TV channels, which do not have the same economic model, have something to fear. It is possible that the web giant Amazon, with its economic power, will turn everything upside down.
But as a beginner in the sports sector, is the platform ready to take over from the historical TV channels Canal + and BeIN Sports?
It seems to be a no-fail situation for our giant. Over the last few weeks, many matches have been broadcast, and no reproaches have been reported.
Indeed, Amazon has been able to offer, at a price of €12.99 per month, matches without any advertising and with impeccable quality. The platform even offers very well-presented, very interesting « pre-match » and « post-match » features, and always without any advertising.
Moreover, the lovers of round balls have not noticed any bug since the launch of the platform, no interruption, no crash… in short, nothing to say, Amazon Prime Video is too strong!
Everything store, streaming, sports ... but how far will Amazon go?
Indeed, our giant seems to want to be everywhere.
We analyze its strategy with the primary objective of encouraging Amazon Prime subscriptions.
____________ Agathe DELACROIX
Word count: 533
Works Cited –
Blondet, M. (2021b, novembre 19). Pass Ligue 1 Amazon : prix, abonnement et matchs sur Prime Video. Ariase. https://blog.ariase.com/box/dossiers/pass-ligue1-amazon-prime-video