Tech company Amazon plans to table a bid for the next round of rights to football’s English Premier League, according to the Bloomberg news agency.
The report said that the bid will be part of a broader strategy to offer more sports content to customers.
Media analyst Richard Broughton of Ampere Analysis said that Amazon is “very likely” to bid for one or two of the smaller packages of streaming rights in the upcoming sales process.
The auction will cover three seasons of rights in the UK from 2019-20 to 2021-22.
The league distributed its tender document in December, with seven packages on offer on a platform-neutral basis.
The league also intends to conduct a separate sales process for a single near-live package encompassing long-form rights to 180 non-live matches per season, for linear and on-demand exploitation, and internet clip rights to all 380 matches per season.
It is expected that the auction will be wrapped up later this month.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper said that Amazon had spoken to third parties about the requirements of showing live football due to a lack of experience in the field.