Prime Video expresses interest in World Cup media rights

Amazon has largely stayed on the periphery of the conversation around 2030 World Cup media rights, but that may be starting to change.

At Bloomberg’s “Power Players” conference in New York on Thursday, Amazon’s head of Prime Video U.S., Jay Marine, was asked about the company’s penchant for domestic soccer rights as FIFA prepares to open bidding on the 2030 World Cup, alongside separate rights to MLS and USL.

“The World Cup was fantastic here this year, and I thought the broadcasters did a great job with that,” Marine said, per Sports Business Journal. “That’s an incredible property. Time zone matters there, of course, and this one here was perfect. But it’s a great competition, and we know international soccer, football very well. So, yeah, we’re looking at that for sure.”

Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner, while handicapping the field of potential 2030 World Cup bidders, wrote that Amazon appeared to be one of the least likely streamers to actually land rights, noting that Prime Video doesn’t have the same subscriber acquisition problem that makes a marquee sports property valuable to services like Netflix or Apple TV.

A World Cup would be quite the undertaking for Prime Video. The streamer has secured premium soccer rights overseas, but has never produced anything with the volume of inventory a World Cup has. That said, there’s no question Prime Video, with the resources and backing of Amazon, would be able to pull it off if they wanted to.

Prime Video’s lack of experience with an event of the World Cup’s magnitude, however, makes it a prime partner for a broadcaster like Fox. Instead of building the infrastructure from scratch, Prime Video could lean on Fox for talent and production expertise. (Though, it should be noted, World Cup broadcasters don’t have to do any of the match production. That’s left to FIFA’s Host Broadcast Services.)

Out of all the streaming possibilities, Prime Video seems like one of the oddest fits. The platform doesn’t really have a subscriber acquisition or retention problem since most users are subscribed for Amazon’s other Prime perks. The upside, then, would be limited to getting more people onto Amazon platforms so they can do some online shopping. There’s probably more affordable ways for Amazon to do that than buying World Cup rights.

Verdict: Longshot. Other bidders will be more desirous than Prime Video.

Marine’s comments don’t necessarily change that, but they do pull Amazon further into the center of the conversation than it’s occupied up to this point.

FIFA hasn’t formally opened bidding for the 2030 tournament, held primarily across Spain, Portugal and Morocco, but talks are expected to begin within the next several months. Per CNBC’s Alex Sherman, FIFA plans to package the tournament’s English- and Spanish-language rights together for both 2030 and 2034, with media executives reportedly budgeting between $1.5 billion and $2 billion per tournament across both languages. At the time, Sherman noted that the three companies chasing the rights hardest — Netflix, Disney and YouTube — all see the World Cup primarily as a way to boost their streaming platforms, while adding that Amazon could also enter the mix.

Fox Sports president Brad Zager and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro have both said their networks intend to bid on the rights, while NBC has reportedly already had conversations with FIFA about a combined English- and Spanish-language package through Telemundo.

Netflix, which already holds rights to the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cups, remains widely considered the streamer best positioned to make a serious run at the men’s tournament. But given Marine’s comments here, Amazon at least intends to make it interesting once bidding actually gets underway.