Amazon’s stream of NFL Thursday Night Football games saw a total of 7.1 million views in its first four games, with its reach extending to 187 countries and territories.
After reporting at the end of September that the first game it streamed — between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears — drew an average worldwide audience of 372,000 people who tuned in for at least 30 seconds but stayed on average 55 minutes.
These numbers don’t include last night’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and Miami Dolphins, though that game was also streamed by Amazon. Amazon’s numbers have been steady as the season has progressed.
Amazon has so far shown improvement from Twitter’s streaming track record last year. Twitter, which had the NFL Thursday Night rights before Amazon swiped them, reported an average audience of 243,000 for its first game last year between the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills, with people on average watching for half the time as they have been on Amazon: 22 minutes.
“Things are going well,” Amazon Video head of sports Jim DeLorenzo told Cablefax. “We really always focus on how our customers are reacting and the comments you see from them, and it’s been really positive on a number of fronts. People have found the stream quality to be great, they love the convenience of being able to watch on all the different platforms we’re on.”
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In total through the first four games, each viewer on Amazon watched an average of 51 minutes. Amazon said people are tuning in to the livestream in a variety of ways; from living room devices, such as smart TVs, to the Prime Video mobile app and internet browsers.
While Amazon continues to expand its empire into new areas of business, with some of its major recent investments in logistics and retail, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky told investors on an earnings call Thursday that the company remains committed to video.
Prime members who watch video tend to spend more time in the Amazon ecosystem, he said. By seeing both their viewing patterns and sales patterns, the company can understand which videos resonate with Prime members and make corrections mid course.
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“We’re going to continue to invest in video and increase that investment in 2018,” Olsavsky said. “The video business is having great results with our most important customer base, which is our Prime customers. It continues to drive better conversion of free trials, higher membership renewal rates for existing subscribers and higher overall engagement. That will always be an important part of our Prime offer, and we’ll continue to use the data that we have to make better and better decisions about where to invest our dollars in Prime Video.”
The company has been heavily adding to its repertoire of television shows, movies and original content over the past few years, though sports are still a relatively small chunk of that.
However, sports rights are becoming an increasingly competitive commodity as viewing habits shift, which has prompted even traditional cable companies and broadcasters, such as ESPN and CBS, to change how they offer sports content by adding to their own digital programming.
CBS told SportTechie this summer that it doesn’t view Amazon as a competitor just yet.