Amazon prime – Social Blog

5/5 (1)

For decades, live sports were the backbone of traditional television. Broadcasters like ESPN, Sky, or Ziggo Sport built their business models around exclusive rights, with fans tied to whichever package carried their favourite league. That setup is being disrupted. Tech platforms such as Amazon and Apple are now competing aggressively for the same rights, changing not only how sports are delivered but also why they are valuable.

Amazon has already secured NFL Thursday Night Football and is finalising an NBA deal worth an eye-watering $77 billion over 11 years (Reuters, 2024). Apple took a different path with Major League Soccer: every match is streamed exclusively on Apple TV+ through a ten-year global deal (Apple, 2022). In Europe, the trend is clear too. Ziggo Sport recently extended its hold on UEFA competitions, while Viaplay locked Formula 1 into a long-term agreement for the Dutch market (Formula One World Championship Limited, 2024; VodafoneZiggo, 2022). Fans may have more digital options, but access is increasingly fragmented.

The real shift is in the business model. Traditional broadcasters had to make sports profitable on their own, through advertising and subscriptions. Platforms like Amazon and Apple see sports as part of something bigger. For Amazon, live rights add value to Prime, encouraging shopping and ad spending. For Apple, the strengthening its ecosystem of devices and services (Zhao, 2024). In this logic, sports are not just content – they are tools to keep customers locked into digital platforms.

Still, disruption brings headaches. Rights are extremely expensive, and even big tech faces pressure to justify the costs. A recent survey of Apple’s MLS deal highlighted widespread dissatisfaction among fans over pricing and accessibility (McCain, 2025). And as Hutchins et al. (2019) pointed out years ago, streaming risks repeating television’s old patterns: higher costs, multiple subscriptions, and shrinking reach.

So where does this leave us? Personally, I enjoy the convenience of streaming, but I find it frustrating to need three different subscriptions to follow a single season. What about you – do you see tech platforms as the future of sports, or are they simply creating the new version of cable TV?

References:
Apple. (2022). Apple and Major League Soccer to present all MLS matches around the world for 10 years, beginning in 2023. Apple Newsroom. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/06/apple-and-mls-to-present-all-mls-matches-for-10-years-beginning-in-2023/

Formula One World Championship Limited. (2024). Formula 1® and Viaplay Group agree long-term partnership to exclusively broadcast F1 in the Netherlands and Nordic countries. https://corp.formula1.com/formula-1-and-viaplay-group-agree-long-term-partnership-to-exclusively-broadcast-f1-in-the-netherlands-and-nordic-countries/

Hutchins, B., Li, B., & Rowe, D. (2019). Over-the-top sport: live streaming services, changing coverage rights markets and the growth of media sport portals. Media Culture & Society, 41(7), 975–994.

McCain, R. (2025, August 8). Study Reveals Growing Discontent with MLS & Apple TV Deal. Cord Cutters News. https://cordcuttersnews.com/study-reveals-growing-discontent-with-mls-apple-tv-deal

Reuters. (2024). NBA signs broadcasting deal with Disney, Amazon, Comcast worth $77 billion. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/nba-signs-broadcasting-deal-with-disney-amazon-comcast-2024-07-24/

VodafoneZiggo. (2022, November 10). Ziggo Sport acquires exclusive rights to UEFA club football. VodafoneZiggo. https://www.vodafoneziggo.nl/en/nieuws/ziggo-sport-acquires-exclusive-rights-uefa-club-football/

Zhao, S. (2024). Research on pricing and business models of sports event broadcasting. SHS Web of Conferences, 207, 03012.

4.67/5 (3) Nowadays, technology has transformed many industries making them to move away from the classic brick and mortar business to online services. In this way firms could reduce operating costs while offering a larger variation of products. Nonetheless, shipping and postage has remained unchanged through these years with UPS and FedEx being the primary sources for shipping. But recently Amazon challenged the way of shipping with Amazon Prime Air. It is a drone delivery system distributing commercial packages in less than 30 minutes. Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) originated mostly in military applications but the last 2 years civilian drones outnumbered military drones.

Drones are not only invading in the way of transporting goods, but in a few years, they will change the way of doing business in certain industries. The greatest contribution will be made in doctor aid and medical supplies delivery. Zipline, a Silicon Valley company, is working on a project with the government of Rwandan to deliver medical supplies to inaccessible villages, just in a few minutes. Doctors will request through an application specific material and it will be transferred from a medical warehouse facility right to the remote regions. The drones are designed to fly in average 120km and carry up to 1.5kg packages of fragile items which are dropped safely using a parachute. Also, the drones could be in the disposal of fire departments. In France, a company developed a real-time system to monitor fires and the spreads of flames. It will be “an eye in the sky” helping the firemen to take information about the fire and scout the direction of the flames, from a safe zone.

However, we should keep a close eye to the use of drones as they can also create some problems to the world. Just like birds, flying drones caring cargo could be a danger for aircrafts and should be assessed. The UK government is already running a project to test potential collision impacts between a drone and a commercial airplane as there have been several reports of “near misses”. The tests will be conducted by a military contractor with the use of military airplanes. Moreover, experts warn that drones can become “a game changer in the wrong hands”. Foreign embassies, nuclear power stations or a prime minister’s car can become potential targets for a terrorist attack. Although, remote control warfare is impossible to control, mitigating measures like radio-frequency jammers or no-fly zones could prevent any detrimental action.

From transportation to journalism and from saving lives to guarding, drones will become an incentive for many industries in the way of making business. With pioneers Amazon and Royal Mail, more and more companies will enhance the use of drones to save time, money and limit gas emissions. Yet, possible dangers could arise using drones and the need for flying regulations is mandatory.

References:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/18/13314916/drone-crash-airplane-test-uk-dangers

http://www.ibtimes.com/14-ways-drones-will-change-world-1517486

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/27/how-rwanda-is-using-drones-to-save-millions-of-lives.html

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/11/drones-terrorist-attacks-security-thinktank

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35280402