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Amazon’s Prime Video has said it has decided to handle production of its NBA and WNBA games internally, according to the Sports Business Journal. The streaming company will begin its first year of an 11-year, 1.8 billion annual agreement with the league starting next season. Prime Video’s Head of Sports Programming Jeff Kaiser made the announcement as part of the Sports Business Journal’s Media Innovators conference.
Kaiser noted the company is likely to build a studio for the basketball programming. “Very likely to be built at Amazon Studios in L.A., in Culver City,” he said at the event. “It’ll be an L.A.-based studio show.”
Additionally, as part of the new agreement, Prime Video will air 66 regular season games including games from the Emirates NBA cup and the NBA playoffs. The streamer will also carry a number of WNBA regular and postseason games. Thursday nights are expected to be a doubleheader on Prime Video, and they will also carry NBA basketball on Black Friday in addition to their NFL game.
Per SBJ, Kaiser said about the broadcasts, “Innovation is at the forefront of everything we do. … We don’t do things differently just so we could say, well, we did this because it’s different. We do it if it’s going to be impactful, and it’s going to matter for customers.”
Kaiser said the company and the league may consider moving the NBA Cup depending on the complete outcome of this year’s event. He also noted Prime Video will be the exclusive digital distributor of NBA League Pass and that they are working on building out something subscribers will really like when it is completed.
