Dr Annurag Batra, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, BW Business World & exchange4media, writes on Amazon’s cope with Diamond Sports and the massive developments within the Indian sports activities broadcasting area

by

Dr Annurag Batra

Published –
Dec 29, 2023 6:34 PM

 | 
5 min learn

As the cricket craze meets the streaming surge, can India’s reside sports activities scene deal with Amazon Prime’s punch? Only if Amazon Prime decides to deal the punch in 2024. Is Amazon Prime eyeing India’s multi-sport growth? We will solely know in 2024. If Amazon Prime decides to play an extended innings and a giant one, will cricket be simply the primary wicket? Will different sports activities observe globally, after which in India?

I’m enthusiastic about what may change the broadcasting and streaming area globally, in Asia and India.

I’m writing within the backdrop of three huge developments within the broadcasting and streaming area in India and globally. 

1. The Reliance Jio Viacom’s non-binding time period sheet with Disney India creates a large and perhaps a monopoly. 
2. The Sony-Zee merger talks progressing the place Sony and Zee have prolonged the deadline by 30 days to finish their merger. 
3. WSJ and Reuters reported information that Amazon is in talks to put money into Diamond Sports. 

If Amazon’s cope with sports activities broadcaster Diamond Sports goes by, it may advance and pace up the streaming service’s aggressive push into sports activities content material. It may mark Amazon’s international entry on a giant scale. In 2024 and 2025, Amazon might win huge when it comes to marquee sports activities globally, because the rights come up for negotiations and renewal.

Diamond Sports Group carries video games of over 40 main sports activities groups throughout the US and filed for chapter this 12 months. It is actively negotiating with Amazon about an funding and a multi-year streaming partnership. If an settlement is reached, Amazon Prime Video will turn into house for Diamond’s video games. 

Diamond, which has the native rights to about half the groups in Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association and a couple of third of the National Hockey League groups, will proceed to function its cable partnership.

Sports broadcasting is the driving force for paid subscriptions throughout the globe for streaming companies. 

Peter Biskind, leisure journalist and cultural critic, chronicled in earlier bestsellers, Hollywood’s groundbreaking New Wave of the Nineteen Seventies in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and the Indie cinema motion of the 90s in Down and Dirty Pictures in his guide Pandora’s Box. He makes a case that although Netflix was a pioneer that ushered in binge-watching, ad-free TV is dealing with an existential menace. In a bid to attraction to broader audiences, Netflix is driving away viewers. 

My take from Pandora’s Box is that sports activities streaming will probably be a pure technique to preserve audiences glued, and Amazon Prime and its executives perceive this. Hence, they’ll now embark on conquering the sports activities frontier.

Andy Jassy tweeted on Dec 5, “Exciting to see fans discovering NFL on Prime. Another record past Thursday for the exciting Seahawks Cowboys clash.”  The NFL Prime Time and Amazon Prime partnership resulted within the most-watched recreation ever on Prime Video and the most-streamed recreation in NFL’s historical past.

Andy Jassy who led Amazon Web Services and is now the CEO of Amazon understands that sports activities has the pull and glue issue, and main sports activities partnerships for streaming will make Amazon Prime the house of sports activities.

BCCI in India is creating increasingly more cricket, and now girls’s cricket. Non-cricket sports activities are additionally rising in India. 

India’s love affair with cricket is known, bordering on spiritual fervour. But is there such a factor as an excessive amount of of a very good factor? With a packed calendar, that includes ODI and T20 World Cups, adopted by the ladies’s and males’s IPL auctions, cricket appears omnipresent. Yet, regardless of the saturation, viewership numbers have not dipped. In reality, they’re hovering.

This begs the query: Is India merely cricket-crazy, or is one thing larger brewing? Could this be the daybreak of a golden age for all sports activities in India? After all, the current Olympic successes, significantly the ladies’s hockey staff’s heroics, present a burgeoning ardour for numerous sporting landscapes. Kabaddi, polo, hockey, and even soccer have been witnessing elevated curiosity and funding.

The monetary windfall for BCCI is simple. The IPL and broadcasting rights offers have reworked them into cricket’s Santa Claus, with Jio and Viacom main the cost. Mukesh Ambani, James Murdoch and Uday Shankar are betting huge on Indian sports activities broadcasting, with whispers of a Viacom-Disney-Star merger making a behemoth entity.

But one huge participant can stifle competitors. BCCI wants a dynamic market to maximise income. This is the place the Sony-Zee mix and, doubtlessly, Amazon Prime, are available in. Amazon’s international sports activities broadcasting ventures and its ever-growing Indian subscriber base make it a contender to observe. With its juggernaut-like development, Amazon Prime may quickly be a serious bidder for Indian cricket and reside sports activities generally.

The way forward for Indian sports activities broadcasting is way from settled. With Jio-Viacom-Disney and Sony-Zee vying for dominance, and Amazon Prime rising as a darkish horse, BCCI is prone to be showered with much more profitable offers. This, in flip, may gas the expansion of not simply cricket, however all sports activities in India. So, buckle up, sports activities followers – India’s viewership binge is simply getting began!

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