Ben Gilbert

They have to be.

And it's pretty genius that the NFL doesn't do this themselves, that they rely on broadcast partners, because they basically observed that they can get all these people to do all this work and pay them all this guaranteed money.

And the NFL still gets to keep all the profits.

The NFL doesn't have to film the games other than NFL films.

They don't have to, you know, have the broadcast trucks.

They don't have to have the relationship with the consumer and do all the direct marketing to the consumer to onboard to their direct video platform.

They don't have to sell the ads to the advertisers.

Right.

They somehow have outsourced and commoditized all of that.

And I think they get to keep the vast majority of the profits and will continue to shift that balance in their favor.

Yeah, they used to air Thursday Night Football also on Fox and on the NFL Network, which is the NFL's own channel to do mostly non-game programming, but some experimental stuff themselves like Red Zone and alternate game broadcasts.

But Thursday Night is just Amazon now.

Yeah.

So then Amazon is having to do make goods with the advertisers because Amazon wasn't able to get enough people to watch the streams.

Because, frankly, I think a lot of people want to watch the NFL on TV.

And it's kind of complicated to figure out how to stream it and watch it through Amazon.

And I know it can just happen on my little set-top box and my Apple TV, install the app and this, that, and the other thing.

But you know what's easier for most people?

Turning on Channel 3.

So it's totally fascinating watching the balance of power in the value chain.