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Amazon Makes a Big Move To Jump Headfirst into Live Sports

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Fresh off announcing that it will split its new headquarters between New York and Crystal City, Virginia, Amazon is making headlines again — this time in sports.

CNBC is reporting that Amazon is one of the bidders for the 22 regional sports networks that Disney recently acquired from Fox.

The regional properties include the YES Network, which is the home of the New York Yankees and is partly owned by Yankee Global Enterprises, as well as many regional Fox channels, such as Fox Sports Southwest and Fox Sports Ohio.

The Fox Sports regional networks currently have about half of the local MLB, NBA and NHL rights in addition to rights for some MLS and WNBA teams.

The regional networks that Amazon has bid on include the rights for 17 NBA teams, 15 MLB teams and 13 NHL teams.

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The YES Network is considered the biggest get of the regional networks. It’s in the biggest market, covers the most valuable MLB team and also owns the rights to the Brooklyn Nets.

But a clause in the Yankees’ contract with Fox enables them to bid on buying back Fox’s stake in the network in the event it is sold, and they are doing so, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.

This is Amazon’s latest foray into live sports after its deal to stream NFL ‘Thursday Night Football’ games this season.

Amazon has non-exclusive streaming rights for 10 “TNF” games this year, and they’re airing on Amazon Prime Video. The NFL extended the relationship between the two companies to run through the 2019 season.

Would you like to see Amazon acquire the regional networks?

It’s not that often that the live rights for sports leagues become available, so Amazon sees the regional networks as the next best thing, the report said.

Alex Sheman of CNBC said Amazon obtaining sports rights via the networks could open the floodgates for other tech companies to enter the market.

“Selling sports rights to a giant like Amazon, with a market capitalization of more than $700 billion, could spur other technology giants like Apple, Google and Facebook to bid on sports rights to stay competitive,” Sherman said.

In addition to Amazon, other bidders for the 22 regional sports networks include Sinclair Broadcasting Group, TEGNA and Apollo Global Management.

The latter is a private equity firm that is also trying to partner with LeBron James’ Uninterrupted platform.

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This latest round of bids was just the first with another round due before the end of the year.

Fox, which sold the networks to Disney, isn’t entirely out of the race. While it didn’t make a first-round bid, it could do so in the second round.

CNBC didn’t provide the amount of the bids for the first round, but Disney did acquire many of Fox’s assets earlier this year for $71.3 billion.

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Ross Kelly has been a sportswriter since 2009.
Ross Kelly has been a sportswriter since 2009 and previously worked for ESPN, CBS and STATS Inc. A native of Louisiana, Ross now resides in Houston.
Location
Houston, Texas
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Sports




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