Amazon and the NFL: What Does the E-Commerce Giant’s Move into Sports Streaming Mean for Advertisers?

by | Nov 29, 2022 | CTV/OTT, Industry Insights

Amazon and the NFL partnership

In March 2021, Amazon secured a 10-year deal with the NFL to exclusively broadcast 15 Thursday Night Football games and one pre-season game every year on their streaming service Prime Video and live streaming service Twitch—a moment of success parallel to lifting the Lombardi Trophy.

According to AdAge, Amazon expects around 12.5m people across the U.S. to tune in every Thursday night.

This deal is the NFL’s first partnership with an all-digital platform—marking a historical change in television media buying advertising.

Amazon’s Takeover of the NFL’s Thursday Night Football

After calling Fox home for the last four years, Thursday Night Football is set to bring a revolution in the sports streaming sector. This change may take some adjusting for an audience spanning multiple demographics and age groups who have already put in a lifetime of viewing America’s games.

But for Jeff Bezos’ e-commerce giant, this switch to streaming offers an advertising and sales business model never seen before.

With this deal, Amazon now offers advertisers a trifecta of benefits with the ability to reach a wide audience with quality and measurement capabilities no other platform can offer. According to Nielsen, the NFL drew 17.1m sets of eyes on average for each regular season game in 2021. This number of viewers will allow Amazon to fill in existing gaps in their advertising portfolio that still rely heavily on targeting customers in the moments right before purchasing.

Amazon will now be able to provide advertisers with purchasing metrics on behavioral information and sales at crucial television viewing moments. For example, Amazon can now offer NFL partner Gillette valuable information about the number of products they sell on the Amazon store when Gillette ads are played during Thursday Night Football.

This type of access to detailed metrics is one of the many reasons why sports leagues across the globe are trending toward streaming platforms.

Part of a Larger Trend of Streaming Giants Trying to Make Their Mark in the Sports World

Between Prime Video, Peacock, ESPN+, Apple TV, and Paramount+—the battle for sports streaming rights rages on like The Greatest Game Ever Played. But this clash is handled in boardrooms instead of being fought in an icy Yankee Stadium.

While streaming’s business model was once the antithesis of live viewing, these global media giants are now poised to take over the live sports space in the coming years.

Streaming platforms are buying national sports leagues’ broadcast rights faster than initially imagined, and the amount they are willing to spend seems like an afterthought. In 2021, NBCU’s Peacock bought the exclusive rights to broadcast the WWE on their platform across the U.S. for $1b.

Apple paid $2.5b for a global partnership, with the MLS giving them the exclusive rights to broadcast every single MLS game on their streaming network.

Additionally, the NBA’s television contract with Disney and Turner Sports is set to expire during the 2024-25 season—leaving another opportunity for streamers right around the corner. In fact, Amazon has long been cited as a potential bidder—and every week it defies expectations with TNF, that theory becomes more of a reality.

Amazon and Nielsen: Bringing Advertisers Granular Audience Data

Along with Amazon’s new deal with the NFL, they have also signed a three-year contract with Nielsen to measure their audiences across Twitch and Prime Video during their stream of Thursday Night Football.

This allows Amazon to provide advertisers with the same data sets Nielsen uses for other league broadcasts—making the comparison for potential ad buyers much simpler. In addition to these metrics, advertisers will also have access to data from Amazon’s self-produced metrics that give insight into engagement, brand awareness, and sales.

By offering a combination of metrics, Amazon provides an elevated form of digital media buying that traditional media may soon be unable to compete with.

What You Need to Know About Amazon’s New Ad Packages

According to Yahoo Entertainment, Amazon’s new streaming deal with the NFL is all about collecting ad data. As part of their new agreement with the NFL, it’s reported that Amazon gets to sell two minutes of ads per hour. The ads are non-skippable and use a full-screen format. Amazon has already sold ad packages that cost $2.8m. As of now, it is still being determined how many minutes of ad space are included in each package.

But with this price tag comes Amazon’s ability to track sales data—allowing advertisers to know how many people purchased or looked up their product on Amazon after their ad aired.

With an audience as in tune with what they are watching as sports viewers, this kind of targeting offers excellent value.

The Value of Sports Viewers

In streaming or television marketing, there are few greater audiences than sports viewers. When you purchase advertising space during sporting events, you are providing consistent exposure to your product over a 2-4 hour period to an audience genuinely captivated by what they are watching.

Additionally, sports accounts for 34% of all viewing by adults between 18-49, according to ADU.

With such a high number of people watching attentively every week, advertisers can’t afford not to include sports marketing in their media buying plan.

Advantages of Leveraging Amazon in Your Media Buying and Advertising

Greater Ad Reach

According to Nielsen data, Amazon’s Thursday Night Football opener brought in 13m viewers on Prime Video and an additional 2.3m viewers on Twitch. That’s a whole lot of people that media planners can reach with their advertisements, especially because streaming offers more flexible viewing opportunities than traditional media. Prime Video gives NFL fans the ability to watch games from anywhere and everywhere on their smartphone—allowing advertisers to reach a larger and more diverse audience.

Ability to Market to Cord-Cutting Sports Fans

Since 2012, cable providers have lost 25m subscribers, according to Zippia. And with the NFL routinely dominating ratings—there have been 15.355m viewers in week one of the 2022 season alone. The ability to market to cord-cutting NFL fans on Prime Video is an advantage you can’t do without in your media plan.

Insight into Audience Behaviors

Like most CTV platforms, Prime Video gives advertisers access to in-depth analyses of audience behaviors. From what products they have on their Amazon Watchlist to what shows they recently watched on Prime Video, Thursday Night Football on Amazon gives advertisers unique insights they can use in their media planning strategy and leverage in future marketing decisions.

For example, recent data from Amazon Ads shows that Thursday Night Football viewers were interested in product categories such as home improvement, sport-related merchandise, toys, groceries, and pet products. Amazon Ads data also showed that their audience is 55% male, with 25% percent of viewers being between 25-54 years old.

Access to this level of information allows advertisers to create targeted ads that reach and resonate with valuable audiences, especially ones that are difficult to reach otherwise.

Opportunity for Tracked Sales Data

Prime Video allows advertisers to track sales data in new ways—giving them access to in-the-moment buying habits. By tracking viewers’ sales data, advertisers have the opportunity to market to them for specific products they know they are interested in—ultimately driving more desired outcomes among key consumers.

Digital Remedy—Your CTV Partner

At Digital Remedy, our team of digital advertising experts is committed to media buying excellence and unparalleled client service. We offer fully managed service, including a seamless media process to deliver operational efficiencies, access to premium inventory sources, and a closed loop, full-funnel attribution solution—eliminating the stress of managing the complex elements of media buying and planning.

Our Flip platform can help you to buy, manage, optimize, and measure your OTT campaigns—whether for Thursday Night Football or the latest Hulu original series.

How We Work With Amazon

Through our strategic partnership with Amazon, Digital Remedy allows advertisers and agencies to:

  • Access Amazon owned-and-operated (O&O) inventory and garage data (specific to auto)
  • Deliver multiform campaigns to millions of active users engaging with Amazon’s owned and operated properties (amazon.com and IMDb.com)
  • Leverage unique first-party shopper data collected from billions of customer journeys
  • Pinpoint potential buyers by observing distinct buying behaviors and purchase pattern metrics

For the latest updates regarding our media offerings and partnerships, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Now is the perfect time to be one of the early adopters of this largely untapped advertising platform. Take your OTT campaigns to the next level with Digital Remedy.

Contact a member of our team to learn more.

Mike Seiman

Mike Seiman, CEO & Chairman, is the founder of Digital Remedy, a digital media solutions company leading the tech enabled marketing space he co-founded while still a college student at Hofstra University in the early 2000s. The company has grown quickly and is now a major player within the crowded digital advertising landscape. The rapid growth of Digital Remedy, formerly CPXi led to its inclusion on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest growing privately held advertising/marketing companies in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2014. Mike was selected as a semi-finalist in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year initiative in 2010 and 2013 and as a finalist in 2009 and 2014. In his free time, Mike serves on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Hofstra University. He also focuses on numerous philanthropic initiatives including sitting on the boards of the H.E.S. (Hebrew Educational Society non-profit community center) and Children International, where he spearheaded the development of community centers in both Guayaquil, Ecuador in 2010 and Barranquilla, Colombia in 2014.

David Zapletal

Before graduating in 2005 with degrees in Retail and Consumer Science (with an emphasis in eCommerce) and a Minor in Public Business Administration at the University of Arizona, David Zapletal had already successfully grown a start up ad network from serving an initial 1 million impressions per day to over 10 million impressions per day. It was his deep understanding of internet advertising during the industry’s beginning stages that led him to another start up at the time, CPXi. More than 8 years that have passed and Zapletal currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Digital Remedy. In that role he continues to help grow and implement optimization tactics across various ad serving platforms, oversee daily operations of the account management and trafficking groups and maximizes ROI for Direct Response advertisers as well as for Publishers. Outside of Digital Remedy, Zapletal commits his efforts to an organization called Camp Dream Street, a camping program for children with disabilities, where he serves on the Board of Directors.

Jeff Reitzen

Jeff has worked in multiple facets of the online industry, from sales to operations as well as consumer engagement, content analytics and most recently in data optimization. His career began as a wedding, bar mitzvah, and Sweet 16 DJ where he learned the delicate balance of crowd energy management. Quickly, this skill made him incredibly successful in managing online sales for Geico. He joined CPXi at its startup stage as employee number 4 and has been a key driver of continued growth. His unique knowledge of what converts in the digital ad space, the application of data, and how to optimize platforms for efficiency continues to be invaluable to Digital Remedy clients. Today, Jeff is responsible for innovating and optimizing all Digital Remedy offerings including platforms, systems, tools, and internal processes—ensuring the organization remains on the precipice of the marketplace.

Mike Juhas

Mike Juhas, has over 13+ years of experience in ad tech client services, working with brands, agencies, and publishers ranging from top 10 advertisers to small regional organizations, to rep firms, holding companies and independent shops. An integral member of the Digital Remedy team, Juhas leads all client relationships, including facilitating onboarding and integration, establishing relationship protocols, overseeing Quarterly Business Reviews and status meetings, navigating financial coordination, and overseeing 24/7 team support. His specialties include consultative services, planning strategy, and account management disciplines. Juhas lives in New Canaan, CT with his wife and two daughters, and their dog, Perry–the unofficial company mascot.

TJ Sullivan

TJ Sullivan has over 20 years of media sales and leadership experience. His knowledge of the digital media landscape, ability to develop strategic solutions that solve brand challenges, and talent for motivating sales teams, have made him a vital member of several media and ad tech organizations. Before joining Digital Remedy, Sullivan was VP, Connections at iHeart Media, a cross-divisional group that enabled national advertisers to seamlessly work with multiple iHeart business units; CRO of Reelcontent, a video distribution company for brands; SVP of sales at AdoTube, a video ad network; and was Co-Founder and SVP of video measurement company, OpenSlate—for which he is still an advisor.

Sullivan had served as the President of 212, New York’s Interactive Advertising Club, and currently advises many early stage start-ups in the programmatic and video space. Notably, RUN (sold to Publicis in 2014), Futures Media, Transmit.Live, and Kubient.

Outside of his work in the media industry, Sullivan sits on the Board of St. Elizabeth School in Wyckoff, New Jersey and the Advancement Committee of St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, New Jersey. He resides in New Jersey with his wife and four children.

IP Zone: Leverage the relationship between users and the location of their IP addresses in a cookie-free, safe and scalable way.

Behavioral: Combine first party with network analytics and enormous scale to define custom audience channels that are optimized to sites with high brand engagement.

Demographic: Reach the right audience based on demographic characteristics such as age, gender and income.

Mobile Device: Target users by mobile device type (Smartphone, tablet, etc.), carrier and operating system.

Geo-Location: Target your audience residential cluster, proximity to retail locations, campaign level DMAs and more.

Contextual: Place a relevant ad in front of a user who is reading content that contains specific terms.

Buying Power and Quality

Let’s be honest. Your ad ops are limited by your access to only a handful of channels and DSPs. You want more reach and better prices, but don’t want to sacrifice quality in order to achieve those goals. Digital Remedy has access to a vast multitude of channels based on relationships we’ve cultivated over nearly 20 years in business. That means we get the best prices, have personal relationships, and don’t get sent to voicemail when we call.

It also means that we can execute omni-channel ad ops for better prices than an internal team, while ensuring the quality is up to industry standards. On top of access to all sorts of specific audiences we’re able to to leverage first- and third-party data across all your campaigns and pivot across platforms based on results. Any campaign, any budget, any platform, any audience. Digital Remedy backed by AdReady is restriction free ad ops….and what could be better than that?

Resources, Time, and Overhead

When was the last time you enjoyed balancing budgets, reading resumes, dealing with aggressive sales teams, or wasting years of time for small gains in performance. By partnering with Digital Remedy you get the full support of $30m in OPEX including marketing teams, sales teams, and a dedicated 24/7 ad operations team. No hiring new employees for media optimization, business development, or account management. No months of training and on-boarding. No long meetings crafting sales materials. Just your team focused on making deals, and our teams and tech focused on supporting and executing those deals in a tech-enabled, digital ecosystem designed to get the most out of any KPI.

Reporting and Support

How nice would it be to have all of your data and insights in one location. We don’t mean an excel sheet sent out once a week with complicated charts, or an XML file with pages and pages and pages of tables (what is this, 2003?). We mean a fully customizable dashboard reporting in real time, or as real time as possible. You get to decide the how, what, and when of the reporting you’re seeing. And that’s ALL of the how, what, and when’s. If you want to see breakouts of all of the individual campaigns in your system, done. If you want broad scope comparisons of all of the campaigns in the last year, done. If you want to see CTR’s for specific audiences and compare them to CPM for your best performing advertiser but limit the scope to campaigns greater than 30k, done. All of this is at your fingertips with the AdReady Dashboard, all in one place.

Jessica Cortapasso

With more than a decade of experience in human capital management, Jessica Cortapasso serves as SVP, People at Digital Remedy. After graduating from Muhlenberg College, she quickly recognized her passion for people and entered the workforce in Human Resources where she gained expertise in employee relations, designing strategic benefit plans, and the development, implementation, and curation of corporate engagement initiatives for big-name brands and small companies alike. Becoming a member of the Digital Remedy family in 2013 while simultaneously acquiring her Masters Degree in Human Resources Management and Development from New York University, Jessica has steered company culture through significant events ranging from acquisitions and a rebranding, to the development and application of our Core Values that shape our daily business practices. Cortapasso resides in Brooklyn, plays competitive volleyball, and loves spending time with her nieces.

Erez Feld

Responsible for the financial and legal practices of Digital Remedy, Erez brings 22 years of experience in precision financial analysis, growth management practices, strategic acquisition, and investment leadership. A graduate of Hofstra University, Erez began his career modeling for corporate finance, and expanded his accounting prowess in the real estate sector. Erez joined Digital Remedy in 2008 as a senior accountant, and helped to create and build an accounting department that could support the rapid growth of the company and aligned with those needs. Over the past 12 years he has evolved through various positions at the company within the finance discipline, supervising and mentoring additional finance personnel, while growing under the tutelage of Michael Fleischman, former CFO of Digital Remedy. Today, he leads the Finance Department by supporting high-level projects such as acquisitions and restructuring, and is responsible for overseeing all financial assets, establishing financial procedures, controls, and reporting systems.

Michael Fleischman

After a successful career as an accomplished Fortune 500 financial professional leading Corporate Finance and Strategic Planning at Cablevision Systems Corporation and its programming subsidiary Rainbow Media Holdings, Michael currently plays a role in the overall management of Digital Remedy including direct responsibility for all financial-related activities including accounting, financial planning, M&A, legal, insurance, real estate and banking relationships. Michael brings more than 25 years of media experience at Cablevision and Rainbow Media and during his career was instrumental in the launching and managing of a number of cable television networks including 10 Regional Sports Networks across the US, American Movie Classics, Bravo, and the Independent film channel as well as the structuring of corporate partnerships with companies including Liberty Media, NBC, Fox/NewsCorp and MGM. Additionally, he was the finance lead on a number of professional sports team acquisitions including Madison Square Garden, the successful IPO of Cablevision and a tracking stock at Rainbow Media.Michael was involved in the creation and launch of Rainbow Advertising Sales which was one of the Cable Industry’s first Local Advertising Sales Divisions.

Tony Pascal

With over two decades of experience in the design, product, and technology space, Tony joined Digital Remedy as a graphic designer in 2007. His responsibilities quickly expanded, landing him in leadership roles across multiple disciplines including creative direction, analytics, monetization optimization, and management of platform development. He continued to grow with the organization over the last fourteen years, overseeing all design, development, and execution of Digital Remedy products and platforms. In his current role as SVP, Product & Technology, Tony leads product and technology development for the company and acts as the go-to liaison across teams, ensuring alignment on all aspects of internal and client-facing technology initiatives.

Prior to Digital Remedy, Tony built and ran his own direct response company from 2002-2007 after graduating from New York Institute of Technology, where he learned the fundamentals of digital advertising and optimization strategies that still remain relevant today.

In a previous life, Tony was a ski instructor and still remains an avid skier today. When he is not leading product development, he can be found working on old cars, rock climbing and hitting the slopes.

Gayle Meyers

Gayle Meyers is an entrepreneur, venture partner, investor, and operating resource in the digital media and marketing industry, with over two decades of executive leadership experience. After launching a management consulting firm, Growthing which is focused on optimizing growth strategies for executive leaders and their organizations, Meyers has frequently been tapped for high-profile consulting and advisory positions to help marketing technology companies enhance their in-market presence.

“Gayle is widely recognized as a leading strategist with years of expertise in the ad tech space,” said Mike Seiman, Chairman and CEO of Digital Remedy. “Her career in discovering and integrating game-changing technologies in the marketing industry will serve as an invaluable resource as we continue to enhance our product suite in the months ahead.”

With expertise spanning multiple disciplines, Meyers frequently serves as a keynote speaker at industry conferences for companies such as Google, Verizon, Omnicom, LiveRamp, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Oracle. A list of her notable past clients who have benefitted from her unique insights to increase shareholder value includes Tinuiti (acquired by New Mountain Capital), Adometry (acquired by Google), MediaForge (acquired by Rakuten), Integral Ad Science (acquired by Vista Equity Partners), and Tapad (acquired by Telenor).

Matt Sotebeer

With 14+ years of experience in ad tech and emerging technologies, Matt Sotebeer brings an uniquely innovative approach in his role as Chief Strategy Officer at Digital Remedy. As CSO, Matt focuses on the intersection between the product, product marketing, tech, data, and sales teams, while fostering productive cross-functional company-wide relationships to inform and influence sales, educate clients, and optimize company performance.

Matt has an extensive knowledge in the integration of data science, creative, and media solutions to drive sustainable growth for companies, with a focus on designing customized, scalable solutions leveraging machine learning alongside human intelligence. Throughout the tenure of his career, he has successfully managed global teams aligned to common goals, encouraged collaborative problem solving, and supported talent growth for entrepreneurial companies including MiQ, Rocket Fuel, and Audience Science.

Jeremy Haft

A proven strategic, revenue, and team leader with over 20 years of experience managing and scaling revenue in the competitive ad tech landscape, Jeremy serves as Chief Revenue Officer at Digital Remedy.

Before joining the team in October 2022, he served as CRO at Channel Factory, where he reorganized the revenue team for sustainable growth and increased the sales team by 3x to drive predictable and more accountable revenue. Prior to that, he served in a decade of leadership positions. Most notably, as SVP of Sales at Amobee and as VP of North America Sales at Viant/Adelphic. At both organizations, Jeremy successfully built and scaled platform and business solutions from their infancy to achieve the desired corporate goals.

Jeremy graduated from The University of Vermont and currently resides in New Jersey with his wife and two children. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling to tropical locations, dining out, cooking feasts with friends, and any new fitness trend he can get his hands on.

Randall Rothenberg

Randall Rothenberg has been a prominent leader in marketing, media, and advertising for 40 years. Most recently, he led the transformation of the IAB into one of the largest and most potent media and marketing trade bodies in the world, helping to develop technical standards, self-regulation, government regulation, market and consumer research, global digital content marketplaces, and professional development programs. Under his leadership, IAB opened the industry’s first major public policy office in Washington, D.C., launched the IAB Tech Lab to oversee digital marketing technical standards, started an industry-leading training program that has certified more than 14,000 digital media sales professionals, created the IAB Digital Newfronts and Podcast Upfronts, and published comprehensive research on brand disruption, the evolution of video, and the economic impact of the ad-supported Internet ecosystem. During Rothenberg’s 14 years as CEO, IAB quadrupled its association membership and quintupled revenue.

Randall has served on numerous nonprofit and commercial boards, including the Ad Council, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council, the Chamber of Progress, the International Center of Photography, and the Executive Advisory Board of EDO, Inc. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University with an A.B. in the classics.

He is also an avid nature, urban, and portrait photographer—and Jazz guitarist.

Martin Kristiseter

Martin Kristiseter is an accomplished entrepreneur and digital executive with over 18 years of experience in digital media, ad technology, and programmatic solutions. He currently serves as the Managing Director of Compulse, a marketing technology and managed services company built for local media and agencies.

Prior to Compulse, Krisitiseter launched the digital advertising business at Marketron that transformed a declining revenue management & radio traffic business (SaaS) into a growth company through Pitch — an omni-channel workflow, sales enablement, fulfillment, and reporting platform for media companies.

He is a graduate of the University of Colorado, where he earned a BA and MBA in Finance.

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