It has been nearly four years since Steve Ballmer left his job as Microsoft CEO, and he’s noticeably more relaxed these days. “One of the nice things about having four or five unrelated things you work on (is that) people always assume you’re working in one of the other areas even when you’re out screwing around, playing golf,” he joked on stage Wednesday at the Rotary Club of Seattle. RELATED: If Steve Ballmer could show President Trump and Congressional leaders one slide, this would be it But he’s no less energetic or enthusiastic about the projects he’s pursuing, as anyone… Read More
Amazon is getting serious about streaming the world’s best soccer matches. Bloomberg reported Friday that Amazon will submit a bid in next month’s auction for rights to stream Premier League soccer. The Telegraph reported Thursday that Amazon is consulting “industry experts” as it prepares to make its bid. Rumors of Amazon’s interest in streaming Premier League matches have been swirling for months. It shows Amazon’s commitment to streaming live sports; the tech giant paid a reported $50 million to stream Thursday Night Football NFL games this season, and has inked a variety of other deals for sports streaming rights that add… Read More
Signal acquisition, content ingestion, transcoding, ad insertion, playback optimization, and end-to-end monitoring probably weren’t top of mind for NFL fans who watched Thursday Night Football this season on Amazon. But developing and implementing the technology required to stream live sports over the internet to millions of viewers in more than 200 countries at the same time is no easy task — and Amazon, for the most part, scored a touchdown with its first attempt at live football. The Seattle tech giant last week streamed its 10th Thursday Night Football game as part of a deal worth a reported $50 million… Read More
In what could be a preview of what watching sports online might be like in the future, the NBA today announced a live streaming deal with Twitch. Starting Friday, the NBA will live stream up to six games per week from its G League — the NBA’s official minor league — on Twitch, the streaming giant owned by Amazon that is known for streaming video game action but is now expanding to other verticals. The G League streams will mimic many features that Twitch’s 15 million daily active users already engage with while watching other people play video games. There… Read More
Amazon is poised to become a live sports powerhouse as soon as next year, a new report predicts, as more tech companies are seeking out streaming rights for top leagues in the U.S. and abroad. The report from Juniper Research covers 10 tech trends for 2018. The presence of Amazon, and to a lesser extent Facebook, as top contenders for major sports packages is the firm’s number one trend to watch for next year. Amazon’s biggest foray into live sports so far came when it dropped a reported $50 million to stream 11 NFL Thursday Night Football games. Amazon beat… Read More
