Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is collaborating with DirecTV (NYSE: T) to display Thursday Night Football games in over 300,000 venues, including bars and restaurants.
This past Thursday, DirecTV showed its very first game with Amazon Prime Video, which was between the San Francisco 49ers and Houston Texans. There will be a total of about 15 games per season, and Amazon put forth around $1 billion for this 11-year deal.
That deal was a part of an 11-year media rights agreement the National Football League (NFL) reached with media companies including NBCUniversal (NASDAQ: CMCSA), CBS Sports (NASDAQ: PARA), ESPN (NYSE: DIS) and Fox (NASDAQ: FOX).
"The sports media landscape continues to evolve rapidly, and the focus on delivering a great experience to our entire range of customers must remain at the center of that evolution," DirecTV Chief Content Officer Rob Thun said in a statement. "This agreement between Amazon and DirecTV for Business comes at an important time when more streaming companies are obtaining exclusive rights to marquee sports programming and fans want to cheer on their teams at home and while out at bars, restaurants and other businesses with friends, family and coworkers."
For consumers who are subscribed to programs like Business Entertainment, Business Xtra, Commercial Entertainment, and Commercial Xtra, users will instantly obtain the Thursday Night Football program at no additional charge. The game feed can be discovered on DirecTV channel 9526. Though bars and restaurants usually do not carry any streaming services due to the costliness from television upgrades, DirecTV for Business nevertheless offers places the opportunity to obtain an experience that simulates live streaming through its Thursday Night Football games for consumers worldwide.
DirecTV also provides NFL games to all kinds of consumers, whether residential or commercial. It has held ownership of Sunday Ticket, which is essentially NFL's subscription deal for games that are out of the market, since 1994. In spite of the fact that DirecTV does not intend to be a collaborator for Sunday Ticket any longer, its collaboration with Amazon will likely enable the company to stay in the NFL world.