Amazon positions NBA rights and live sports portfolio as a lure for its broader ads business

Take Amazon, for example. The tech giant’s ad revenues increased 18% year-on-year in first quarter 2025 to $13.9 billion — and CTV is a single, if key, part of that business. A megabucks deal for NBA streaming rights last year saw Amazon Prime Video add to its range of live sports coverage, which also includes coverage of the NFL, MLB, Premier League soccer and NASCAR.

It was the latest step in building a package that Danielle Carney, head of live sports and video sales at Amazon, told Digiday now allows advertisers to reach streaming sports audiences throughout the calendar year. In the last month, Amazon’s been on a showbiz talent hunt, snapping up presenters and commentators while it builds a new California studio to house its NBA programming. That’s not just about making viewers feel at home — it’s a way of adding on more advertising real estate in the form of in-studio and in-show sponsorship slots, as it brings its wares to market during this week’s upfront conversations.

With clients looking for maximum flexibility at this fiscally uncertain time, Amazon will allow advertisers to buy live sports inventory standalone, including against the NBA, said Carney. But once through the door, Amazon execs hope its growing portfolio will tempt more brands to increase spending on its demand-side platform (DSP), through which advertisers access Amazon’s own search, display and video inventory, and use its e-commerce audience data to direct off-site ads.

Digiday spoke with Carney about that ambition, and how Amazon’s live sports lineup brings it closer to realization.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

How does Amazon’s live sports portfolio fit into your upfronts offer?

Going into this upfront we have strong IP across sports, whether it’s the NBA, [which] we’re launching in October, or the NFL, which we’ve had for three seasons now. We’re taking those IPs and creating big tentpole moments like Black Friday.

We see those tentpoles really driving demand for us. We’re starting to become this one-stop-shop for advertisers, from premium content at scale — IP like the NFL — [to] driving all the way through the funnel.

This year is a big pivot for us as we start to create a multi-sport offering that spans across the full calendar year. We’re seeing customers make bigger commitments, [including] multi-year commitments, to partner with us.

One of the things we’re leaned into is focusing on democratizing sports. As we start to scale our opportunities across NASCAR, the NBA [and] the WNBA, we have different points at entries for different customers and we’re starting to see our pool of advertisers diversifying. 

Since we launched Thursday Night Football [Amazon’s NFL coverage] over three seasons ago, we’ve added 70 new advertisers to the NFL that had not purchased the NFL before [20 joined in the last season]. A lot of them are SMBs. They have their products on Amazon but maybe they weren’t thinking about the NFL, which could feel [too] premium in some ways. But because of the direct impact we can have to purchase, it becomes extremely valuable to be able to reach at mass scale in that way.

Do you expect the tariffs to color client responses to the upfronts? 

We will navigate and evolve with the landscape, as everybody else will. And no matter what that climate is, advertisers are still focused on using advertising [to] achieve their desired business outcome or objective, whether it’s awareness, consideration and conversion. It’s at moments like these where performance becomes paramount.

Some marketers are wary of major commitments, and there are still some unknowns — whether audiences used to TNT will follow the NBA to your platform, for one. How’s Amazon answering those questions?

We’ve learned a lot over the last three seasons of Thursday Night Football, and I think we’ve built a really good product. Year one of TNF looked very different from year two, and I don’t think year one of the NBA [will] look similar to year one of TNF. We’ve earned that trust [from clients] that we will deliver a best-in-class product, and that we will have ad innovations that will help drive their business, and that we will continue to innovate.

So, what innovations are you adding to NBA coverage?

This year, Amazon Ads is offering advertisers first-party measurement capabilities for sponsorships. Amazon Ads will be measuring sponsorships like traditional 30-second ad units, providing more accurate performance measurements. This will also allow us to offer measured audiences and outcomes for presenting sponsors and advertisers, including the visibility of creative and in-studio sponsorships (same as an ad unit). We believe that advertisers will be more interested in investing in premium presenting sponsorships if provided deep measurement solutions and ad-tech enhancements.

Is sports an on-ramp for brand advertisers into Amazon Ads?

Yeah, we are absolutely looking across the portfolio to understand how best we can drive the outcomes our customers are looking for.

Even if you’re not endemic to Amazon, there is a ton of opportunity to use our insights and our data to help understand the behaviors of what’s happening across Amazon and off Amazon. It’s important for us to think holistically, not just across our portfolio, but also about how we’re measuring with partners to understand how we are driving towards their outcomes.

Amazon’s CTV pricing has been credited with re-pricing the streaming market. Should we expect that situation to change?

Our value proposition stays the same. We’re driving outsized value right through all of our digital capabilities we have that don’t show up in other linear sports. So, our value proposition remains strong. I think we’re in the right spot because we’re seeing the demand and we’re proving the value.

Should we expect ad loads on Prime Video to increase this year, as more advertisers jump aboard?

We remain focused on prioritizing ad innovation over volume. While demand continues to grow, our commitment is to improving ad experiences rather than simply increasing the number of ads shown.