Sports fans across the world, whether they are aware of it or not, are currently immersed in a fundamental shift in the way they interact with and observe the lives of professional athletes and their respective organizations. Bleacher Report’s Uninterrupted offers everyday people a unique window through which they can observe the daily activities of Josh Norman, LeBron James, and other superstars. Derek Jeter’s Players’ Tribune allows anyone to read unadulterated material written by athletes for the whole world to see. And, with their new NFL reality series set to be released via Amazon Video, Amazon and the NFL are shrinking the gap between players and fans.
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The series, titled All or Nothing, will spend each of its seasons (which are comprised of eight hour-long episodes) following a single team for an entire NFL campaign. All or Nothing’s first go around will chronicle the 2015 Arizona Cardinals, who finished out the regular season at 13-3 — good for first place in the NFC West — before going on to lose to the Carolina Panthers in the NFC Championship game. What will make All or Nothing different from weekly articles about a team or nightly updates seen on Sportscenter, though, is that Amazon’s show will literally follow every aspect of a team’s season, from simple game results and highlights to off-the-field-drama, and events that take place in players’ homes. Almost everything All or Nothing is set to showcase will be novel material, and the show will serve as a vehicle for anyone who watches it to truly know what happens for a particular team during the year.
This is going to be fun to watch! https://t.co/vyJgk9vH21
— Calais Campbell (@Campbell93) March 21, 2016
The NFL choosing to work with Amazon as its media source for All or Nothing shoves the tech giant further into the sports world. Amazon has been dabbling in sports for years in attempts to expand its services, and was actually picked by the NFL prior to last season to manage the league’s data. Alas, it isn’t until now, with the NFL deciding on Amazon to handle its new reality series, that Amazon is truly being recognized as a key player in the sports world — as a company that can contend with the likes of Verizon and Facebook for digital rights to Thursday Night Football (which Amazon is doing at the moment). In fact, with the NFL rather blatantly expressing its predilection towards Amazon, Jeff Bezos’ company might even have the upper hand in the competition for something as exclusive as Thursday Night Football digital rights.
In an era where athletes and fans are closer than ever before, it seems reasonable that Amazon — a company that connects people to practically everything they need — is leading the charge in connecting people to, well, more famous people. All or Nothing is set to reveal just how close Amazon can bring common folk to the NFL, and it would seem that more of the same is on the horizon as the NFL continues to work with Amazon in getting fans what they want in the digital age.