The September 15, 2022 the NFL matchup between the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs is being “televised” on Amazon Prime. Please stop and think about the abundant meaning of this development.
For one, how easily we forget that the very notion of NFL football taking place on any day but Sunday was once ridiculed. So dismissed was it that ABC, a distance third among the “Big Three” television networks, won the rights to televise Monday Night Football (MNF) starting in 1970 simply because CBS and NBC turned away from the opportunity in supercilious fashion. So did Anheuser-Busch (A-B).
You see, it wasn’t just the leading networks that scoffed at “Monday Night Football,” it was also the top beer brand. As most readers know, televised NFL games are a great way to market beer since viewers tend to drink it while watching. The problem for Anheuser-Busch was that its executives looked on Monday NFL games as haughtily as executives at the Tiffany Network (CBS) did. Miller lacked the brand recognition to be so choosy, only for its ads on what became a Monday night institution to prove a catalyst for surging market share. “Great Taste, Less Filling” became a thing thanks to professional football on Monday night becoming a phenomenon.
Two of the Big Three networks and the makers of Budweiser missed, and did so in a blundering way. That they came to thoroughly regret their misread of the power of Mondays is a statement of the obvious now, and a reminder that on matters of business, the future is much more than opaque.
Which is why one hopes politicians and pundits eager to use government force to neuter Big Tech are made aware of Amazon and the NFL. Better yet, one hopes they use MNF in total as a “teaching moment” that will wake them up to the folly of their stances. They should start with the networks and A-B.
That they passed on what proved so consequential is a reminder that “market power” in business brings new meaning to ephemeral. That’s the case because the giants of business invariably stumble, and they invariably stumble because when it comes to consumer likes, tomorrow is another country.
Evidence supporting the above claim is Amazon itself. Think about it. At present its market capitalization is nearly $1.3 trillion, a staggering number. That it’s so enormous is all that readers need to know in trying to understand what Jeff Bezos and his courageous team of commercial outsiders accomplished.
The simple truth is that while markets may not be totally efficient, it’s a known quantity that we never run into a stray $20 bill on the street simply because what’s valuable (even in 2022 dollars) is snapped up near instantaneously. Looked at through the prism of Amazon’s valuation, the fact that it’s so enormous is loud evidence that that commercial powers-that-be looked at internet commerce far more disdainfully than leading television and beer executives looked at professional football on Mondays in 1970.
No business knowingly allows a trillion+ business opportunity pass, which is a sign that the most successful retailers of the 1990s saw what Bezos et al were doing with Amazon, only to get back to what they deemed more important work. Opportunity missed. Again, giants stumble. Always. Circuit City was the highest flying stock of the 1980s, yet it’s gone today. Blockbuster Video was viewed as so powerful as recently as 2005 that the FTC blocked its attempted purchase of Hollywood Video. Funnily enough, while Blockbuster was salivating over Hollywood Video, it couldn't be bothered to acquire Netflix….What’s that about giants stumbling?
Back to Amazon, how ironic and how uplifting it is to report that ESPN, the unrivaled sports behemoth when the 21st century began, has allowed one of its stars (Kirk Herbstreit) to moonlight on Amazon’s Thursday Night Football. How quickly things change. In 2006, a rather dominant ESPN acquired the broadcast rights to Monday Night Football. Thinking about the worldwide leader in sports, when the 1980s began it nearly went bankrupt so challenged were its finances. Really, how could a cable “network” in Bristol, CT compete with the Big Three?
Oh well, the formerly fledgling network that founder Bill Rasmussen kept afloat with credit cards in the early ‘80s had the means to purchase the brightest night in NFL-dom not long after the 21st century began. Notable here is that the very idea of Amazon having a role in anything related to the NFL would have been a laugh line in 2006 in consideration of its “Amazon.org” nickname. The NFL only deals with established businesses, thank you very much.
Which is why September 15, 2022 is so meaningful. Amazon “televising” the NFL? No one would have even laughed about it in 2006 simply because the mere thought of such an odd pairing was too outlandish for reasonable discussion. That Amazon is “televising” its games with ESPN’s Herbstreit and network television legend Al Michaels is just more evidence of how little the past or present of business predicts the future.
Yet politicians and pundits want to break up Amazon and other symbols of “Big Tech.” Have they no sense of history? Don’t they know that when former MNF commentator O.J. Simpson was being considered for the lead role in Terminator, that executives rejected Simpson since viewers would never believe him as violent? True story.
What’s also true is that the NFL on Amazon Prime thoroughly mocks antitrust and those so historically challenged as to be paranoid about “Big Tech.” If you’re still dubious, just turn on your computer or smartphone to watch the NFL on Thursdays.
