Amazon positions NBA and live sports offer as a lure for large brands

For example, take Amazon. In the first quarter of 2025, the advertising revenue of the tech giant rose by 18% compared to the previous year to $ 13.9 billion and CTV is a single, albeit part of this company. In a megabucks deal for NBA streaming rights last year, Amazon Prime Video was added to its spectrum of live sports reporting, which also contains reporting on NFL, MLB, Premier League Soccer and Nascar.

It was the most recent step to create a package that Danielle Carney, Head of Live Sports and Video Sales at Amazon, announced that Digiday can now reach streaming sports audience throughout the calendar year. Last month, Amazon was on a show biz talent hunt and grabs moderators and commentators while building a new California studio to accommodate its NBA programming. It's not just about feeling the viewers at home, but also more advertising materials in the form of in-studio and in-show sponsoring slots, as she is launching her goods during the preliminary discussions this week.

With customers who are looking for maximum flexibility in this tax uncertain time, Amazon enables advertisers, live sports inventory, also to buy against the NBA, said Carney. But if Amazon Execs hope through the door that its growing portfolio will lead more brands to increase the expenses for its Demand-side platform (DSP), via which advertisers access their own search, display and the video inventory from Amazon and use its e-commerce audience data to direct outside the location.

Digiday spoke to Carney about this ambition and about how the Live Sport structure of Amazon brings it closer to the implementation.

This interview was easily processed for clarity.

How does the Live Sport Portfolio from Amazon fit into your pre -frags?

If we deal in this way in advance, we have strong IP throughout the sport, whether it is the NBA. [which] We start in October or in the NFL, which we have had for three seasons. We take these IPs and create large tent poles like Black Friday.

We see that this tent poles really do the demand for us. We start to this one-stop shop for advertisers, from Premium content in the scale like the NFL [to] Drive all the way through the funnel.

This year is a big pity for us because we start creating a multisport offer that extends over the entire calendar year. We see customers greater obligations, [including] Several years of commitments to work with us.

One of the things we have stretched into is the concentration on democratizing sport. When we start scaling our chances in Nascar, the NBA, [and] In the WNBA we have different points for entries for different customers and we see how our pool diversified by advertisers.

Since we started football on Thursday evening [Amazon’s NFL coverage] Before three seasons, we added new advertisers to the NFL 70 who had not bought the NFL beforehand [20 joined in the last season]. Many of them are KMBS. You have your products on Amazon, but maybe you didn't think of the NFL that could feel [too] Premium in a way. Due to the direct effects that we can buy, we become extremely valuable to achieve this in the mass scale.

Do you expect the tariffs to dye customer responses to the pre -stagger?

We will navigate and develop with the landscape as everyone else does. And no matter what this climate is, the advertisers are still concentrating on the use of advertising [to] Reach your desired business result or your goal, regardless of whether it is awareness, consideration and conversion. It is at moments when performance is of the greatest importance.

We have learned a lot in the last three seasons of Thursday evening and I think we have built a really good product. The first year of TNF looked very different from the second year, and I don't think so [will] Look like the first year of TNF. We deserve this trust [from clients] That we deliver a first -class product and that we have advertising novels that help promote your business and that we are still innovative.

What innovations do you expand to report NBA?

This year Amazon ADS offers advertising functions for sponsorship. Amazon ads measure sponsorship like conventional 30-second ads and offer more precise performance measurements. In this way we can also offer the measured audience and results for the presentation of sponsors and advertisers, including the visibility of creative and studio sponsorship (such as an advertising unit). We believe that advertisers will be more interested in investing in premium presentation sponsorship if they are made available to deep measurements and ad-tech improvements.

Is sport an on-ramp for brand advertising in Amazon ads?

Yes, we are definitely looking for the portfolio to understand how we can drive the results that our customers are looking for.

Even if you are not endemic at Amazon, there is a lot of opportunity to use our knowledge and data to understand the behavior of what happens in Amazon and outside of Amazon. It is important that we think holistically and not only in our portfolio, but also about how we measure with partners to understand how we drive on your results.

Amazon's CTV price design was attributed to the re-evaluation of the streaming market. Should we expect this situation to change?

Our promise of value remains the same. We drive through all of our digital skills we have that are not displayed in other linear sports. So our promise of value remains strong. I think we are in the right place because we see the demand and prove the value.

Should we expect advertisements to increase this year if more advertisers jump on board?

We continue to concentrate on prioritization of ad -innovations over the volume. While the demand continues to grow, our commitment is to improve the ad experiences instead of simply increasing the number of ads specified.