Amazon makes U.K. soccer foray in Premier League streaming push

Joe Mayes, Bloomberg News

A Crystal Palace FC football player, left, wears the official club kit from Macron SpA, and the Adidas AG X 17 + Purespeed soccer boot, whilst competing for the official Nike Inc. Ordem V soccer ball during the English Premier League match against a Manchester United FC player wearing the official club kit from Adidas AG, and soccer boots from Nike Inc., at Selhurst Park, in London, U.K., on Monday, March 5, 2018. , Bloomberg

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Amazon.com Inc. bought a package of live broadcasting rights for English Premier League soccer, the first foray by a U.S. tech giant into a top European championship.

Amazon will show two full rounds of matches per season, comprising 20 games, for three years starting in 2019, the Premier League said in a statement Thursday. The games will be available on Amazon Prime Video at no extra cost to users, Amazon said.

While only a handful of games, Amazon’s acquisition is a further sign of its push into live sports broadcasting, a strategy for luring subscribers that threatens U.K. pay-TV incumbents Sky Plc and BT Group Plc. Amazon previously bought rights to ATP tennis and NFL football.

“We are always looking to add more value to Prime,” Jay Marine, vice president of Amazon Prime Video in Europe, said in a statement. “The Premier League is the most watched sports league in the world.”

The rest of the live U.K. broadcasting rights to Premier League soccer are shared between Sky and BT.

--With assistance from Thomas Seal and David Hellier