Last year, the National Football League experimented by letting Twitter livestream 10 Thursday night games.
This year, pro football will continue the test, but will switch it up: Amazon has bought the rights to the league’s streaming package, and will offer the games for free to its Amazon Prime subscribers around the world.
Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube had also expressed interest in carrying the games this year.
Amazon is paying around $50 million for the 10 games it will show next fall, according to a personfamiliar with the deal. That’s a big increase from the $10 million Twitter paid for last year’s games.
The rest of the deal is roughly similar to the one Twitter had last year: CBS and NBC will each broadcast five games, and Amazon will stream the networks’ coverage, including their ads. Amazon will have the rights to sell a handful of ad slots per game.
Amazon says it may sell ads for those slots, but says it will also use them to promote the company’s other video offerings.
Amazon won’t have exclusive streaming rights for the games. CBS and NBC will also have the ability to stream the games they broadcast, and Verizon will stream the games to its wireless subscribers.
Few things: