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Amazon wants to convince advertisers to take a bigger swing at its sports offerings.
With the streaming and e-commerce giant set to take over a significant package of NBA rights this fall, moves are afoot to line up advertisers with a new suite of opportunities, says Danielle Carney, who oversees the company’s efforts for ad sales tied to live sports.
“We are really excited as we transform Amazon from a single sport into a multi-sport upfront.” she says. Amazon is also revving up a new NASCAR package and holds rights to stream “Thursday Night Football” and some NWSL matches. It holds rights to stream NHL contests in Canada and Roland Garros in France as part of a global portfolio.
With Amazon picking up more sports inventory, it hopes to collect more ad dollars. A projection from MoffettNathanson sees the company generating an additional $750 million in ad revenue tied to its NBA package. Carney declined to comment.
The pitch to Madison Avenue is that games streamed via Amazon Prime Video lure a younger consumer than sports broadcasts on traditional TV. Indeed, “Thursday Night Football“ was the only part of the NFL’s regular-season portfolio to see its ratings increase.
Amazon hopes to win a series of sponsorships for a new production facility it is building that will serve as a home to all NBA studio programming, says Carney. “There’s an opportunity there to start from the ground up,” she says, in terms of a presenting sponsorship or integrating promotional messages into shows.
Amazon hopes to tap its first-party data to measure the effectiveness of sponsorships and traditional ad units with tis audience. The company feels advertisers will pay a premium for presenting sponsorships if provided with measurement technology and other ad-tech opportunities. Such stuff, she adds, “allows us to continue to keep getting smarter about the 30-second creative inside live sports events.”
