Want To Watch NFL Games? You Might Need An Amazon Prime Account Soon

The fight for sports media rights heats up as broadcast and cable networks now face increased competition from streaming companies.

Here’s the latest on a big upcoming rights offering from the National Football League.

What Happened: A 49% stake in the NFL Network, RedZone and NFL.com could be acquired by Amazon.com Inc AMZN, according to reports from Front Office Sports.

Sources told Front Office Sports that Amazon is in the lead in negotiations for the highly coveted NFL content. Multiple media companies, tech companies and private equity groups are all in the running for the minority stake in the NFL’s media assets, according to the report.

Goldman Sachs GS was hired by the NFL in June to help with the investment.

“Amazon has now been in the family (NFL) for years. They get a preferred position just like the other major networks,” Desser Media President Ed Desser told Front Office Sports.

Amazon is also bidding for the “Sunday Ticket” package from the NFL. Others in talks for this highly coveted NFL asset are reported to include Walt Disney Co DIS, ViacomCBS Inc VIAC and Apple Inc AAPL.

Amazon has dozens of job listings in sports categories including marketing and public relations, according to the report.

Related Link: Amazon in Advanced Discussions To Host Many NFL Games Exclusively On Prime Video: WSJ

Why It’s Important: Amazon has made its intentions of landing sports rights clear and has already partnered with the NFL on some games.

Amazon Prime Video is set to be the first streaming service to have an exclusive package of NFL games, with the coverage of “Thursday Night Football” games next year. Amazon paid $1 billion a year for those rights.

Amazon currently airs “Thursday Night Football” games on a non-exclusive basis, sharing the rights with Fox Corp FOX, NFL Network and others.

Amazon is also looking to assemble top on-air talent for NFL coverage with reports that Al Michaels and Troy Aikman are the company’s top picks for a dynamic duo to call games. Aikman is currently signed with Fox and Michaels signed with NBC Sports, a unit of Comcast Corp CMCSA.

NFL Network reaches around 55 million U.S. homes. NFL RedZone is popular with fantasy football players and the rising number of people betting on NFL games, as it offers highlights of top games and live coverage of many scoring plays.

Amazon Prime costs $12.99 a month or $119 a year and has been a great source of revenue for the technology giant. Members get free shipping and also other perks throughout the year including Prime Video. Amazon has over 200 million Prime customers.

Having exclusive NFL content and games could boost overall subscription numbers for Amazon Prime and allow the company better leverage to raise prices down the road and bring in new partnerships.

NFL viewership is up in 2021 and continues to be a highlyg coveted media property given its massive audience, strong advertising demand and people watching live versus on-demand content.