Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced that the company will try to bid for English Premier League streaming rights.
The e-commerce retailer is seeking to buy a package that allows it to stream a number of games — around 20 to 32 — from the Premier League next season. Sky and BT pay nearly $7 billion for the rights to stream the league, so Amazon will have to shell the big bucks even if it were to just stream a few games throughout the course of the season.
This isn’t the first athletic venture the retailer has entered as it inked deals to stream Thursday night NFL games, as well as ATP tennis matches. Amazon will place its bid for the Premier League games sometime next month.
Last month, Sky and BT announced that they would make their streaming of the Premier League’s games available for companies such as Amazon to place their money where their mouth is. Other companies are expected to have interest in the move, including Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), although the social media site has not been as vocal about making a move for these games.
Adding Premier League games to the fold would likely be yet another push from Amazon to add more users to its exclusive Prime service, which competes with other exclusive video, TV and movie streaming services.
AMZN stock gained 1.4% on Friday.
