NY Yankees and Prime Video team-up
For the 2025 season, 21 Yankees games will stream exclusively on Prime Video starting April 2 and will be free for Prime members. One-third of these games will be against top teams that reached the playoffs last season including Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Philadelphia, and San Diego. This season will again feature a pregame show, play-by-play coverage by YES broadcasters and analysts including Michael Kay and former Yankees stars David Cone, Paul O’Neill and Joe Girardi. The broadcast will employ Amazon’s X-Ray technology, which gives viewers access to live stats, team and player information, and play-by-play calls in real-time. In addition to Yankees games, Prime Video also offers Thursday Night Football, NBA, WNBA, and NASCAR content. Let the games begin!
The Circana Take:
- Amazon and its deep pockets are eating up sports rights, taking one for the traditional cable TV playbook. Leaving aside the cost, this is a near guaranteed way to amass viewership.
Max scraps content from ad-supported plan
WBD is removing B/R sports and CNN news content from the Max ad-supported tier starting at the end of March and stopped the launch of a paid B/R Sports plan. For now, its good news for ad-free subscribers as there will be no additional charge for B/R and CNN content which had originally been on the table. The B/R Sports tier was to be free through the end of February, and then would cost an additional $10/month.
The Circana Take:
- More streaming providers are beginning to further differentiate their plan tiers beyond just paying to remove advertising. Indeed, this is not much different than Paramount+ including Showtime in their premium tier.
- WBD realized what many have known for decades, sports and news draws audience, use it to grow core subscribers, not build an ancillary targeted service.
FilmRise and Samsung TV Plus partnership grows
FilmRise and Samsung TV Plus increased licensing agreements for FilmRise’s FAST channels, films, and TV series. FilmRise FAST channels include Unsolved Mysteries and Forensic Files. TV shows include Cheaters, Heartland, Highway to Heaven and Making a Serial Killer while films include Dahmer, MVP, The Paperboy and Prom Night. This helps FilmRise increase distribution.
The Circana Take:
- Samsung TV+, not being owned by a content provider like Pluto or Tubi, has an uphill battle developing a differentiated FAST programming mix. Deals like this with FilmRise are critical to keeping a fresh array of programming in this now hyper competitive market.