Amazon Announces NBA Studio and Black Friday Game

Ahead of details of the NBA's new media deal recently coming out in unsealed court documents, Amazon was already revealing plans for the league's 2024 Black Friday games and its new NBA studio. At ADWEEK’s Mediaweek event on Tuesday, Amazon head of U.S. video and live sports sales, Danielle Carney, announced that Amazon would have a Black Friday NBA matchup when the company's new global NBA agreement goes into effect in 2025. She added that Prime Video's NFL Black Friday matchup will serve as a lead-in. "We have a Black Friday NBA game, so how amazing to have the NFL lead-in?" Carney said. "Usually, it's the opposite." In addition, Carney revealed that Amazon is creating its own NBA studio, something it hasn't pursued with its Thursday Night Football (TNF) NFL coverage. Though the executive couldn’t disclose more specific details about potential personalities or content, she noted that the studio would give advertisers new opportunities to get into the game. "When we went into Season 1 with Thursday Night Football, we wanted to create these fresh off-the-field faces. We had all our talent on the field for the pre-game, the post-game, the halftime, which was very different and unique and created these experiences," Carney said. "When you’re in a studio, you have all these other opportunities for branding, and we’ve never had that before. With the NBA, we’re creating a studio where we will be able to really think big for our advertisers." Regarding Prime Video's NBA offerings, Carney explained that Amazon will be the exclusive global third-party partner of the NBA’s League Pass, making the league more of a 7-day-per-week property for the streamer's more than 200 million monthly users worldwide. With that in mind, Carney noted advertising creative will "become even more important," with the executive explaining that the company has set up opportunities through its sports brand solutions team to ensure it's helping brands and will continue to offer options like its audience-based creative, which allows customers to deliver up to 10 different solutions to different audiences. “Being contextually relevant is extremely important for customers and advertisers, and live sports is the perfect place to do that,” Carney said, noting that Amazon already produces 30-second creative content for DraftKings before each TNF broadcast. According to Carney, Amazon will host over 66 regular season games, the NBA’s Emirates Cup in-season tournament, and playoff games. The rights also bring WNBA games, including the Commissioner’s Cup tournament and WNBA Finals. Amazon's Danielle Carney tells ADWEEK's Bill Bradley how the streamer plans to woo NBA advertisers. More details to come Additionally, Amazon is set for some very specific perks in its NBA deal, according to the 82-page agreement that was released on Tuesday as part of a lawsuit by current NBA rights holder Warner Bros. Discovery—and obtained by Awful Announcing, the Athletic, and others. As shown in the documents, many of the streamer's games are played on Thursday and Friday—though it gets some Saturday games—and it gets all of the playoff play-in games, as well as nine to seventeen games in the first or second round. According to the agreement, Amazon’s sports brands solutions team already plans to import TNF features, including X-ray, rapid-recap, and key plays to its NBA coverage, as it attracts advertisers. The documents said that certain features, including AI-driven visualizations, AWS data, NBA-branded Amazon boxes, and shoppable content (including NBA merchandise), were awaiting approval.

Mediaweek

Amazon Announces NBA Studio and Black Friday Game

An NFL lead-in, audience-driven creative content, and off-court space for analysis are all part of its 2025 basketball strategy

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