For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – March 22, 2021 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Amazon.com, Inc.
AMZN
, The Walt Disney Company
DIS
, ViacomCBS Inc.
VIAC
and Comcast Corporation
CMCSA
.
Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:
Amazon (AMZN) Boosts Sports Content Portfolio with NFL Agreement
Amazon
has entered a 10-year agreement with National Football League (“NFL”) in a bid to strengthen its sports content on Prime Video.
The company will stream 15 Thursday Night Football games during the regular season and one pre-season game a year in the United States for which it had obtained the broadcasting rights earlier.
Notably, this marks the NFL’s first exclusive national broadcast package and Amazon’s Prime Video is the first streaming service to secure it.
Further, the number of regular season games, including Thursday Night Football,in this package will increase to 15 from 11. These games will begin streaming on Prime Video in 2023.
Additionally, Prime subscribers will be able to avail of new pre-game, half-time, and post-game shows.
We believe that the latest move is likely to strengthen the viewership of Prime Video on the heels of the strong popularity of NFL games. This, in turn, is expected to drive growth in its subscriber base.
Growing Relationship With NFL
The new agreement marks the extension of Amazon’s existing relationship with the NFL.
Prior to the latest deal, the e-commerce giant with NFL expanded the 11-game Thursday Night Football package last year to add one exclusive regular-season game per year.
Apart from this, NFL has leveraged Amazon Web Services’ (“AWS”) cloud-computing solutions for its Next Gen Stats platform.
Further, NFL announced new sports statistics for the 2020 Season namely Expected Rush Yards, Route Classification, Expected Points, Win Probability, Expected Yards After Catch (xYAC) and Field Goal Probability, which were generated from the Next Gen Stats platform and powered by AWS compute technology and AWS Machine Learning services.
Notably, the advanced statistics offer deep insights about the game to fans and viewers.
Per the latest deal, Amazon will also provide fans with access to interactive features like X-Ray and Next Gen Stats.
Expanding Sports Content
Amazon is leaving no stone unturned to expand its live sports portfolio worldwide.
This is likely to strengthen its competitive position in the global streaming space against
Disney
.
We note that Disney’s ESPN has also signed a long-term deal with the NFL. Further, the company’s sports-focused streaming service ESPN+ has gained solid traction, primarily owing to content strength. The service streams MLB, NHL and MLS games, Grand Slam tennis, boxing, PGA Tour golf, college sports, international rugby, and cricket, among others.
Further,
ViacomCBS
‘ latest multiplatform rights agreement with NFL, which extends CBS’s relationship with the league for the next 11 years through the 2033 season, remains noteworthy. Per the deal, the company’s Paramount+ streaming service and CBS Sports will continue to air CBS’s televised American Football Conference Sunday games.
Meanwhile, Peacock owned by NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of
Comcast
, will stream the games under the Sunday Night Football package.
Nevertheless, Amazon’s strengthening sports content offering remains a major positive. Along with the NFL, the company streams the English Premier League after winning the rights to 20 matches a season.
Additionally, Amazon has launched
MLB.TV
on Prime Video Channels for Prime members in the United States.
All these endeavors position the company well against the above-mentioned companies.
Currently, Amazon carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here
.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss
.
This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit
https://www.zacks.com/performance
for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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