Starting June 29th. In addition to the games they stream on Prime Video, Amazon will be using the streaming platform Twitch to broadcast several Premier League Football matches, completely free of charge!
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Starting with the Crystal Palace vs. Burnley match Amazon plans to use Twitch to broadcast 4 live matches complete with Twitch Chat in order to enable Twitch viewers to have live discussions with other fans in real-time.
Amazon acquired Twitch back in 2014 for the modest sum of $970M. The popular streaming site is widely used by the gaming community where players can gain a following and make an income by live-streaming their gameplay to their fans.
In 2018 Amazon purchased the rights to broadcast Premier League Football for a period of 3 years, up until now they have been broadcasting matches using their streaming service: Prime Video, which is only available to subscribers.
After a 14-week hiatus, part of the Premier Leagues radical coronavirus restart strategy is to loosen the guidelines on broadcasting so that more platforms are able to share matches. The aim is to ultimately increase accessibility and viewership for the matches after such a long time off. This strategy has actually enabled broadcasters like the BBC to show matches, something that has never happened up until now.
Similarly to Sky Sports, Amazon is working with EA Sports to provide viewers with artificially generated crowd noises like the ones used in FIFA, that will give the viewer a more organic experience while watching the match. This is somewhat necessary as the pitch will be quite silent without the roar of the crowds.
Check out the video above to see which other games you'll be able to catch for free on Twitch!