Amazon is ready to deliver The Masters. Could the Super Bowl be next?

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 Masters Par 3 contest.

It was eight years ago that Amazon Prime Video completed its first live rights deal in sports. Now, it showcases the NFL, the NBA and, launching this week, the Masters.

And Prime Video may just be getting started.

“It is working,” Jay Marine, Amazon’s head of Prime Video U.S., global sports & advertising, told The Athletic.

Prime Video has acquired the most robust package of games among the new digital sports streamers, a category that includes Netflix, YouTube and Apple TV.

Amazon executives famously think long-term, and in sports, that includes one day having a Super Bowl. Marine believes it will happen in “the fullness of time,” a very Amazon saying, as it is well thought-out and really could mean anything — kind of a distant cousin to “free shipping” after you pay a membership fee.

Whatever phrasing is used, if you are paying attention to what Amazon has been up to the last few decades, “the fullness of time” could very well mean that the Super Bowl — by far the most-watched programming annually with 120 million-plus viewers — appears on Prime Video within the next decade.

Amazon aims to have the best membership service in the world, and live sports have become a big part of it. For $139 per year, the (ware)house that Jeff Bezos built wants it to be a no-brainer for everyone with its “free shipping” — and its video service. In the complicated and still blossoming reimagination of how we watch our games, among the streamers joining ESPN, Fox, NBC, CBS and TNT Sports, Prime Video is most visibly sharing the leaderboard with the traditional broadcast champions.

This week, Prime Video becomes the first streamer to serve the “patrons” of the Masters, joining mainstays CBS, which still has the bulk of the coverage, and ESPN.

On Thursday and Friday, for first- and second-round coverage from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET, Terry Gannon will host on Prime Video, and six-time champion Jack Nicklaus will appear on the 40th anniversary of his classic 1986 victory.

Its “Inside Amen Corner” presentation will be patterned after “Prime Vision” on “Thursday Night Football.” It will offer an all-new, analytics-driven viewing experience on holes Nos. 11, 12 and 13. It is designed to illuminate the strategy with advanced stats and on-screen overlays.

It is a long-term, detailed approach that Amazon and the famously persnickety Augusta National share. Talks with the Masters began last year and led to the deal, which was announced in September.

“We really had a meeting of the minds of how they think about the world culturally,” Marine said. “For them, it’s not customers or fans, it’s ‘patrons,’ but the attention to detail and working backward from that patron experience, caring deeply about every detail, focusing on the long term and not the short term, if you look at the decisions the Masters have made, it is focusing on the long term.”

Prime Video’s ascension has occurred methodically over the past eight years. While the other big streamers have dipped their toes, seemingly testing strategies, Prime Video has a mature, easy-to-articulate plan.

Its first live rights deal was in England with a get-your-feet-wet agreement for tennis’ U.S. Open in 2018. A year later, Prime Video’s first major agreement, again in England, was for the country’s top content, the Premier League. And away Prime Video went.

“If you look at what we’ve done globally, the strategy kind of reveals itself,” Jared Stacy, Prime Video’s vice president of global live production, told The Athletic.

It does. The NFL, NBA and NASCAR in the United States. Champions League in much of Europe. Roland Garros in France. The NHL in Canada. The Yankees in New York.

“We try to do the biggest sports in their territories,” Stacy said.

What has also helped its adoption and acceptance, besides the technology working, is that Stacy and his team have avoided trying to reinvent the fan viewing experience. As it is doing on rights deals, it has shopped at the top for the best on-air talent.

This includes the best NFL play-by-player of all time, Al Michaels; the best NBA play-by-player working today, Ian Eagle; and the most beloved NASCAR analyst, Dale Earnhardt Jr. For the Masters, Nicklaus, arguably the greatest golfer of all time, will be involved.

Its in-depth, analytics-driven Amen Corner vision might fit this pattern of goodwill, as the die-hard fans tuning in midday for the early rounds heavily influence the perception of coverage, and it could be a winner.

“There is a real throughline in the way we produce and our overall philosophy,” Stacy said. “We are real believers that when people watch these games, it is the best part of their day. These games, these teams, provide fans with joy. We want to have a sense of joy and fun running through our broadcast.”

They have made some bets on women’s sports, too, having major rights to the WNBA and NWSL, which has diversified its portfolio with leagues that have room to grow with Prime Video. Plus, it is an aggregator of other services, so a viewer who has cut the cord can forgo cable and watch The Masters on the Prime Video platform with a subscription to Paramount+.

Like all the trillion-dollar platforms, Amazon can be a bit much, seeping into our lives. However, its customer-first approach is clearly satisfying people, as Amazon Prime has more than 200 million global subscribers. Its large distribution hose makes it an easier move for big events, like “Thursday Night Football,” the NBA and now the Masters, to move to its platform with few complaints.

Last decade, Marine worked for a couple of years as Bezos’ technical advisor, a prestigious position that is designed almost to create a second Bezos brain. Marine has an easy demeanor and matter-of-fact approach that feels wrapped in Amazon’s DNA as he maps out the future.

Amazon launched in July 1994. From the beginning, it took a long-term view, which led to the creation of Prime membership a little more than a decade later. The example Marine likes to cite in thinking for tomorrow as much as today is how Amazon has handled dissatisfaction with deliveries. Bezos empowered customer service to make things right.

“You could say, ‘Well, isn’t that going to cost you money?” Marine said. “Well, yes, it costs you more money in the short run, but in the long run, you have earned their trust because now you have made the situation right.”

Prime Video is a bonus to packages at your door with the touch of a button. It is bringing in new customers and satisfying existing subscribers, according to Marine. Like all Amazon planning, it works backwards, beginning with the fan experience.

Prime Video already has NFL playoff games, NBA conference finals and, now, the Masters.

“For us, our ambition has always been to broadcast the absolute best, the pinnacle of live sports,” Marine said. “We never thought we wouldn’t do that in the fullness of time.”

Ahh, the fullness of time, again. The NFL is in the midst of renegotiating its current contracts, which adds a crack for one of its partners or a new one to pick up even more rights. How long will it be until a Super Bowl — probably in front of a paywall — is on Prime Video?

“In the fullness of time, I absolutely expect that will happen,” Marine said. “Our desire is for that to happen in the fullness of time.”

OK, Jay, so how would you define “the fullness of time”?

“I think it’s pretty self-explanatory,” Marine, 52, said. “How about: I’m still walking on this earth. How about that?”

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