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Amazon Wins NFL Thursday Nights, Beating Twitter

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Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN - Free Report) continues to diversify its offerings for its Prime members. The company reportedly won the distribution rights to live stream 10 National Football League (NFL) Thursday night games leapfrogging Facebook , Twitter and Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) owned Google’s YouTube.

We note that Twitter had won the rights last season for which it paid $10 million. Reportedly, Amazon offered five times more, i.e. $50 million for the rights to NFL. If the report is true, it will mark Amazon’s first major push into live streaming sports, beyond TV shows and movies.

The streaming is exclusively available to Prime members and will be shown next fall. Additionally, the company will sell ad slots and promote other video offerings. NFL Network, CBS and NBC will broadcast the same games on television. Verizon will stream the games to its wireless subscribers.

We note that Amazon’s shares appreciated 54.7% in the last year compared with the Zacks Internet Commerce industry’s gain of 43.8%. We believe investors are encouraged by Amazon’s Prime expansion and grocery initiatives and its efforts around AWS. The company capitalizes largely on its execution strength, robust performance and technological prowess.

Key Takeaway

It appears that Amazon is leaving no stone unturned in pushing advantages to Prime members. This makes sense as Prime’s saturation in the U.S. is apparent, owing to Amazon’s high penetration rates.

Amazon.com, Inc. Net Income (TTM)

So the current focus is on building video content, primarily for Prime subscribers because the growth prospects in that market are considerable. The move is undoubtedly a good tactic to get more people to Prime and generate increased sales for Amazon. However, it will likely put pressure on the company’s bottom line, especially if the deal’s rumored price tag is true.

Currently, Amazon is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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