So much like any other "happy" British family Sport takes up nearly as much time around Christmas as decorating the tree or wrapping presents in our household at home. And yes you've guessed it - with the UK being the sixth fattest nation in the world I'm talking televised sport.
While, we are definitely more sporting than the average sports-fan you get the point and hopefully the overdramatic opening will get you to read on.
Next on the list of most important things for Christmas behind sport, turkey and unnecessary family drama is of course online shopping - AMAZON.
Combine the two and we have this weeks blog.
Amazon being Amazon and the big global player it is, has of course caught on to the importance of sport and more precisely live sport and much like BT Sport before it is using live sports broadcasting as a battering ram into British homes.
More precisely I am talking about Amazon's deal to be the sole broadcaster for 2 weeks of Premiere League fixtures.
Amazon's new three-year deal for 20 fixtures a season is part of the Premiere League's new attempt to get global and online players involved in hopes of creating a bidding war for the broadcast rights.
As mentioned earlier BT sport used the Premiere League as a battering ram to get their own BT box into homes as a direct competitor to the Sky Box. Ending Sky's 2 year long domestic dominance in British Sports Broadcasting, which ended up skyrocketing the value of the broadcast rights. Now, with this BT could of course then also provide other channels and more importantly bundle their Sports Access with their telecoms bundles, in a similar fashion to the US system where the telecom providers have also slowly become the main broadcasters. But that monopoly nonsense is a topic for another blog. The point is BT used it as a floodgate into UK homes.
Coming back to Amazon and it's (rumored) 90 Million Pound broadcast deal. 90 Million is peanuts for the global giant once you see that their 2018 net revenue crossed 218 BILLION and if you look at which fixtures they got the rights to it seems the deal is more a means to an end rather than a new income strategy.
Because let's be honest 20 fixtures a season won't get you very far considering there's around 700 fixtures per season.
But then Amazon's fixtures are on key dates with the first round being at the start of December. Any avid shoppers will have noticed that that is literally right after the biggest shopping weekend of the year - Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The first fixture on Amazon Prime was literally on "Cyber Tuesday". Coincidence? I think not. It's either a super smart play by the EPL - Board to make the deal more attractive for Amazon or Amazon managed to get the perfect dates.
Black Friday is huge for Amazon with the stock market etc. proving this for the last few years and luckily this year the following week of fixtures included some massive games such as Manchester Utd vs Tottenham and the Merseyside Derby. Those two games alone could be enough to entice any dedicated football fan to pay the 7.50 a month fee for that one month - or even better get the 30 day free trial for Amazon Prime.
You can always cancel at any time right?
Well that's until Amazon has done its thing and convinced you to stay.
You'd start your free trial thinking mainly of the games. Soon you'd see the great Prime-only deals Amazon had to offer during Black Friday and a few clicks later you're already enjoying next day delivery and while you're waiting you can watch Clarkson and co being bufoons on the Grand Tour.
Then they follow up with a near perfect live broadcast (there were some grumblings about a few seconds delay ..) including some big and more importantly familiar sports personalities as hosts, pundits and commentators.
Still going to cancel?
Sure why not.
However, those already looking ahead might see Christmas coming along in just over a month's time and you'd hate to lose all those Prime advantages just before Christmas right?
Ok so you not only got some deals and next day delivery with your new Prime subscription, but could also fill the cold and dark days with Prime video and some Prime and Chill.
Christmas goes smoothly thanks to your sweet presents à la Amazon Prime. Boxing day arrives and your new Buddy Primey has all 9 games across a mind-boggling, bum-numbing 12-hour stretch – alongside a separate, NFL RedZone-style simulcast goals show. Moreover if you do need to be social and go for a family walk or whatever you can always catchup on demand right there on Prime.
Add on top of ALL of this that the non-sporty part of the family can always watch their shows of choice on the side and Amazon might be able to convince even the gruffest of sports fans to keep the subscription up.
Short side note, but I feel like Amazon even catered for this with releasing "The Aeronauts" perfectly for Christmas. Featuring two British superstars and Britains very own sweethearts Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones its a super smooth move by Amazon.
To go full circle, Amazon is clearly using sport as a way to sneakily sell its other products in a "Jab Jab Jab Right Hook"- kind of way.
However, on a far wider scale it could be a move to gleam users from Netflix. In a very simplified view both stream entertainment and films (yes I know the quality and range differs massively...).
The HUGE difference is the infrastructure behind the streaming. Amazon's main source of income in 2019 is still their rather unknown Amazon Web Service or AWS. This makes Amazon one of the biggest online service and server providers in the world and thus Amazon is perfectly setup for the mind boggling logistics of streaming live sport to millions of viewers simultaneously.
And if it is a question of "just" getting films or getting films, shipping , shopping deals and live sport - all for a similarly priced subscription - it could be decisive.
More importantly it could be decisive for families. Amazon's lack of any limit to users per account along with the far wider array of services could make it a one-stop shop for all out 21st century "needs". And as such it could (potentially) cut down on any unnecessary family drama around Christmas. I'm sure everyone could get on board with that.