Earlier this week it was announced that Amazon had bought the UK broadcasting rights for ATP tennis in a deal estimated at £10 million a year. The deal also marked the first time Amazon had acquired rights for live sports outside of the United States. Are we seeing a new revolution in live sports and broadcasting rights? Are Amazon, Apple and Google going to become big players in the sports industry, replacing traditional actors like ESPN or Sky in the process?
Currently, increasing amount of sports content is online and traditional broadcasters have created online services for customers. However, currently some of these services, like Sky Sports in the UK, are pricey and continue to increase their prices every year or so. As a result, many potential customers have been priced out from buying such services and have to rely on illegal sport streams. You could think that this represents a somewhat similar challenge what services like Netflix were able to tackle by making users of illegal online content to actually pay for their entertainment.
Arguably, live sports is the one thing that has kept traditional television relevant in the age of on-demand entertainment. Netflix, HBO and other services have shaped the way we watch our television series and have made movie rental services like Blockbuster obsolete. Is the same thing now going to happen to live sports, and will traditional television die off entirely as a result? Maybe Amazon's new deal will set a precedent in this revolution.