Amazon has quietly built a huge advertising powerhouse, and Prime Video is at the heart of that growth. The tech giant reported $17.1 billion in ad revenue in the first quarter (that’s more than Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount combined), with CEO Andy Jassy telling Wall Street that the company generated $70 billion in ad revenue over the trailing 12 months. In fact, Amazon executives now say that Prime Video is profitable in its own right.
Naturally, Prime Video invited all of its users to turn on ads last year, giving them the option to pay more to opt out. Most of them, of course, chose to continue watching with the ads.
The video platform now plans to leverage its slate of new live sports throughout the year to grow that pie even further.
“As we head into this year ahead, one thing remains incredibly clear: And that premium content, especially live sports, is not only going to be strong, it’s accelerating, largely because it delivers measurable results for businesses that they can rally around,” Tanner Elton, Amazon’s vice president of U.S. ad sales, says in an interview. “Sports is one of the most valuable media brands watch, and we see that on Prime video as well.”
Prime Video, of course, has NFL Thursday Night Football, which now draws live audiences similar to games on linear TV. But it has since added NASCAR, the NBA, WNBA and other deals with the likes of Duke University and the New York Yankees that fill out the annual calendar.
“Prime Video is no longer an alternative to linear streaming, it’s competing at the streaming level,” Elton says, adding that it’s competing in the ratings even as it also caters to a younger audience. “In the NFL, Tanf Deviates seven years younger than linear masses. The NBA is nine years younger. Even Nascar is five years younger than linear fans.
Now the company wants to leverage those sports to enhance its entertainment offerings, and create event-type moments, starting with Thanksgiving week this year. Its deal with Duke will see Prime Video acquire Duke vs. UConn on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, with the John Madden biopic (starring Nicolas Cage as Madden) debuting on Thanksgiving. After that, Prime Video will have its annual Black Friday slate full of NBA and NFL games.
“We look at all these really important moments where we can surround entertainment and sports content for brands,” says Elton. “I think one of the best examples we have of that is what we did on Black Friday. It’s hard to think about Black Friday when you don’t think about Amazon, because it’s one of the biggest shopping days of the year.”
Prime Video will focus more on women’s sports, with Elton revealing it has already sold out of stock for this year’s WNBA season.
“We’re going to sell out, that’s how much demand it is,” he says. “Now, what this allows us, which is different from linear networks, is that we have the ability to create a lot of shoulder content, a lot of content surrounding it. And what our customers are telling us is we want more of that content. So you’ll see more of that content being created within Prime Video, but there’s also a fan base that’s connected to what’s happening on Twitch, and the surrounding women’s sports content is exploding in a lot of ways. It’s not just a moment. It’s a step change in how marketers and consumers consume this type of sports intellectual property.”
