When Charlie Neiman arrived at Amazon in 2016, the company had never streamed a live event, let alone live sports.

Fast forward eight years later, and Amazon has emerged as a leader in the burgeoning sports streaming world.

“It is crazy how far we’ve come in a relatively short period of time,” said Neiman, head of sports partnerships for Amazon Prime Video. “I don’t think there’s really a precedent for what we’ve accomplished as an organization.”

Amazon has invested billions of dollars to buy expensive sports media rights and build out extensive cloud computing infrastructure required to stream games for Prime members around the globe.

The company is betting that the strategy will pay off in the form of additional Prime membership sign-ups ($139/year) and new revenue to fuel its growing advertising business.

Live sports remains one of the most-watched telecasts.

“Sports are very attractive for our customers and you can expect us to do more,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC earlier this year.

As more people cut the cord, sports leagues are increasingly engaging with tech companies as their existing deals with traditional cable providers expire. Google has a substantial deal with the NFL, Apple partners with Major League Soccer, and even Netflix is getting in on the action.

“Over time, I think live sports is going to be viewed just as often and as frequently on streaming as it is on linear TV,” Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video, said at a Bloomberg event this week.

The company’s live sports investments are part of a broader move to build the “next generation of an entertainment service” that goes beyond on-demand movies and TV shows, Hopkins said.

Amazon is reportedly expanding into live news, tapping longtime anchor Brian Williams to lead election night coverage next month, according to CNN.

Tonight at Lumen Field in Seattle, just a few miles from Amazon’s headquarters, the tech giant will stream this week’s NFL Thursday Night Football game to millions of Prime members worldwide as the Seahawks host the San Francisco 49ers in a NFC rivalry matchup.

The exclusive NFL deal, worth a reported $10 billion over 10 years, is the crown jewel of Amazon’s live sports catalogue. Viewership through the first four games this seasons was up 20% year-over-year, at 14.17 million viewers.

Later this week, Amazon will stream its first regular season NHL game in a new deal this season with the Seattle Kraken, part of a larger potential move into local sports.

The company is also set to stream NBA games starting with the 2025-26 season (and reportedly pay the league $1.8 billion annually). NASCAR races will come to Prime next year. It has additional deals with the WNBA, UEFA and Champion’s League (men’s soccer), NWSL (women’s soccer), PBC (boxing), and others.

Amazon has differentiated itself by building out technical capabilities, taking advantage of Amazon Web Services, its $100 billion cloud business.

The company got off to a rocky start with its initial Thursday Night Football streams several years ago but the latency has been vastly reduced with new proprietary technology, Neiman said.

It can also offer unique advertising opportunities through “audience-based creative,” which lets brands tailor ads to specific customer segments, thanks to the company’s vast data trove on more than 200 million Prime members.

“You’re no longer beholden to a one-to-many message,” Neiman said.

Last year Amazon aired the first Black Friday game in NFL history, incorporating various in-game shopping features.

Amazon has helped bring 50 new advertisers to NFL programming, Neiman said.

There’s also the opportunity for leagues to experiment with new broadcast experiences.

In addition to its main broadcast for Thursday Night Football, Amazon offers “Prime Vision” as an alternative viewing option that incorporates additional circles, colors, orbs, and other digital shadings, powered by machine learning and RFID chips embedded on each player.

Features include “Defensive Alerts,” which is able to spot potential defensive players that will rush the quarterback, or “Prime Targets,” which identifies open receivers during a play. 

Some aspects of the Prime Vision stream periodically end up appearing in the primary broadcast.

GeekWire reviewed Prime Vision last month — the technology is impressive, but it may not be for every NFL fan.

And that’s part of the point, Neiman said.

“There is a segment of fans who want more, and they want to experiment with different pieces of going deeper,” Neiman said. “That could be advanced stats, that could be alternate streams, it could be AI integrations. We’re investing and inventing the experience to try to figure out how to best serve those fans.”

Streaming sports over the internet, versus a traditional cable broadcast, gives Amazon the flexibility to experiment.

“It’s the beauty and freedom of being a digital-first entity,” Neiman said.

You can expect more testing as Amazon pushes the envelope on the consumer viewing experience — both during games and commercial breaks.

“Sports fans are incredibly passionate about their teams and leagues and the games,” Neiman said. “It’s an area where there’s endless opportunity for innovation.”

Amazon will release its first color Kindle, dubbed the Kindle Colorsoft, for $279.99 on Oct. 30, expanding beyond the realm of black-and-white e-readers for the first time.

Users will be able to see book covers and interior pictures in color, and add highlights in color. The display is 7 inches, about the same size as Amazon’s black-and-white Kindle Paperwhite device.

Amazon is late to the game with its color e-reader, following smaller competitors such as Kobo and Onyx that have already released their own color E Ink devices.

The company on Wednesday also announced its second-generation Kindle Scribe writing tablet and e-reader, with the ability to take handwritten digital notes directly in the flow of e-books for the first time, a feature the company calls Active Canvas.

“Your note becomes part of the page, and the book text dynamically flows around it — if you increase the font size, change the font style, or the book layout changes, the note remains visible exactly where you want it so you never lose any meaning or context,” Amazon says in a press release about the new Kindle lineup.

With the first Kindle Scribe, released two years ago, it’s currently possible to take notes directly in PDFs, but notes in e-books are scribbled instead in a larger window overlaying a large part of the screen. Active Canvas will also be made available as an update to existing users of the original Kindle Scribe, Amazon says.

Another new note-taking option, to be made available in the months after release, will let users write notes in the on-screen side panel, with the ability to hide or show them afterward. It’s called Extended Margin.

An additional new feature for the Kindle Scribe uses generative AI to summarize handwritten notes, condensing them into bullets in a script font, in a format that can be shared from the notebook tab.

Amazon says Extended Margin and AI summarization will also be made available via software update to users of the original Kindle Scribe. Active Canvas and AI features are coming later this year, and Extended Margin in 2025.

In the new model, the Scribe display and the premium pen have been upgraded to make the writing experience more like scribbling on real paper, according to the company. The front-lit display is 10.2 inches, the same size as the original Scribe.

The price starts at $399.99 for a 16GB version with a basic pen, shipping on Dec. 4.

The Kindle Scribe competes with products from companies including reMarkable, which released its reMarkable Paper Pro color tablet in September and continues to sell its black-and-white reMarkable 2 device.

Amazon also announced an updated Kindle Paperwhite, for $159.99 to $199.99 depending on the model; and a revamped entry-level Kindle, for $109.99. The entry-level device also comes in a $129.99 Kindle Kids version with kid-oriented cover designs and six months of Amazon Kids+ with access to books and audiobooks.

“Saturday Night Live” is poking fun at Amazon again.

Monica, a “happy Amazon employee” played by Ego Nwodim, joined the latest “Weekend Update” to talk about her job delivering packages for the tech giant, answering questions from host Michael Che. It was a very funny sketch, including a line about hooking up with an Amazon drone. (“Can’t get an STD if he’s got a USB!”)

I hate to be the guy who says, “well, actually,” but if the best satire is a caricature of reality, it was hard not to notice, as a reporter who covers the company, that some of the underlying facts weren’t quite on the mark.

The biggest disconnect came when Che asked, “Does Amazon offer you benefits?”

“Oh, yeah, of course. Got to, yeah. They gave me this vest,” Monica replied.

In reality, Amazon does provide health-care benefits starting on the first day.

Getting into the realm of minor nitpicks: the skit referred to Amazon celebrating “a 48-hour sale event, Prime Day,” which is traditionally held in the summer. We’re assuming SNL was actually referring to “Prime Big Deal Days,” a separate 2-day sale that took place last week.

Amazon’s treatment of logistics employees has been under the microscope for years. Federal and state regulators, labor unions, and Amazon shareholders have repeatedly raised red flags about the company’s warehouse injury rates. Amazon has cited safety improvements, and it recently boosted hourly pay again.

There are also tensions over workload expectations between Amazon and the business owners and drivers that are part of its Delivery Service Partners (DSP) program. These independent companies employ the drivers who deliver packages in blue Prime-branded vans, wearing Amazon uniforms.

That’s another nitpick: if “Monica” is a delivery driver, she’s not an Amazon employee.

But SNL may have come closest to the mark at the end of the sketch, by turning the whole thing back on the rest of us.

“Monica, I’m starting to think Amazon is overworking you, and the conditions seem inhumane,” Che said.

“Oh, you really think so, Che?” Monica asked. “So, you going to stop ordering from Amazon?”

Che made a face, then ended the interview.

Amazon has been a frequent SNL subject. The show made fun of the cashierless Amazon Go stores and Echo voice speakers in prior sketches. Steve Carrell played Jeff Bezos mocking Donald Trump in 2018, and Owen Wilson did a sendup of the Amazon founder’s space ambitions in 2021.

If they need anybody to fact-check all the fun out of the next one, I’m available.

Lumen Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks, holds the geeky distinction of having the most cashierless locations that use Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology of any stadium across the U.S.

Amazon’s system is an amalgamation of overhead cameras, shelf weight sensors, and computer vision software. Fans scan their credit card (or palm) upon entry, and the technology tracks what items they grab. Then they simply walk out without needing to interact with a cashier or self-checkout process.

Amazon first unveiled the technology at one of its Amazon Go convenience stores back in 2018. It has added the system in other store formats, though recently backed away from Just Walk Out in most of its large-format Amazon Fresh grocery stores and shifted to smart shopping carts.

Stadium concession stands, however, seem like the ideal use case for Just Walk Out. It’s a more streamlined shopping experience (fewer items, consistent format, and a small footprint) where speed really matters (fans want to get back to the game).

Amazon white-labels Just Walk Out to retailers in stadiums, which is why you won’t see much of the company’s branding on the stores. Amazon has grown its third-party Just Walk Out business, selling the tech to more than 200 stores in airports, hospitals, and college campuses, in addition to sports and music venues.

We checked out all 15 stores at Lumen Field last week — six were added this season — when the Seahawks hosted the 49ers for Thursday Night Football, including two apparel shops that use RFID tags instead of cameras. Here’s a quick rundown of each location, starting with our favorites.

Tutta Bella, sections 107 and 137

Tutta Bella is hard to beat if you’re looking for a higher-end Just Walk Out food pickup.

Pizza ($17.99 for pepperoni), salads ($16.99 for a chicken caesar), charcuterie ($12.49), tiramisu ($14.49) — all from a well-known Seattle-based pizzeria.

There’s even a chicken pasta primavera ($15.49) and rigatoni bolognese ($15.49). This is elevated “fast food.”

The Tutta Bella locations also have Red Vines, M&Ms, Sour Patch Kids, and peanuts.

The drink selection is somewhat limited, relative to other Just Walk Out shops at the stadium.

But the personal pizzas and Italian specialties push Tutta Bella atop our rankings.

District Market, section 300

Fans seated up in the nosebleeds aren’t left out when it comes to Just Walk Out.

In fact, the District Market location seems like the most well-rounded cashierless location at Lumen Field.

There is a wide array of beers and other alcoholic drinks, and some fun food options. The butter chicken wings ($14.99) looked tasty. The chicken teriyaki bowl ($13.99) and pork belly BBQ burnt ends ($14.49) were intriguing.

Throw in some peanuts, chips, and candy (Swedish Fish at this one!) — and you’ve got a solid Just Walk Out option on the 300-level.

Fly Thru Market, sections 105, 114, 122, 304, 310, 323, 334 and 340

You can certainly “fly through” these drink-focused locations. There’s something for everyone here, from local craft beers to domestic tastes, to wine and various hard seltzers — even mixed cocktails, non-alcoholic, and Starbucks drinks are available.

The Fly Thru Markets are located directly across from the traditional concession stands, which usually have lines.

It’s almost as easy as getting up off the couch and grabbing a drink from your fridge while watching from home. Except this particular fridge is a lot bigger — and the drinks will drain your wallet a bit more.

Hempler’s/Bavarian Meats “Local Dog & Brats” section 109 and 135

If you’re looking for that classic gameday dog and pretzel, supplied by two Washington state brands, this location will do the trick.

There are several hot dog choices here, including the “Seattle Dog” ($15.49), a vegan option, and a regular dog for just $5. There are also $5 cans of Busch Light sold here. That’s a pretty good gameday deal.

The Pro Shop, section 124

There are two apparel stores at Lumen Field that use a different format of “Just Walk Out.” Instead of scanning your payment option at the entrance, you do it at the end, where sensors scan RFID tags of each item you’re holding.

The larger, better shop at section 124 is stocked with jerseys, hats, beanies, and more.

The other apparel location, over by section 140 in the Northwest corner of the stadium, is an “outlet” shop that is much smaller and sells discounted items. The options here are not as good, unless you’re looking for cheap jerseys of former players. We tested out this store when it debuted last season.

Final thoughts

It was a fun experiment walking through the concourse with the various store formats, from the old school stand-in-line-for-your-food, to the cashierless options.

There are several “Grab & Go” stores which use self-checkout machines. It’s not as fast as just walking out, but for venue operators, they don’t require as much technology and there is more flexibility to rotate food/drink.

One particular “Grab & Go” location in the lower bowl sold drinks, chips, candy, and sandwiches — even a tofu bahn mi from Saigon Drip Cafe in Seattle’s International District. There was also an apparel stand with hats and the “coozie of the game.”

The store had a nice selection of various items, with plenty of room for patrons to move around and little waiting time.

Finally, this installation from Bellevue, Wash.-based wireless carrier T-Mobile caught my attention. T-Mobile customers could get into “Club Magenta” — which came with a free snack and drink — if they showed a pass in the company’s T-Life app.

A nice perk for existing customers — free beer at the game! — and a good way to get folks to download the app. Could Verizon, AT&T, or other brands beyond wireless also do something similar?

Cashierless technology definitely seems like a permanent fixture at Lumen Field, and at stadiums across the world. The Seahawks say they’re seeing higher throughput and sales at certain locations after transitioning to the Just Walk Out format.

It’s still not clear if Amazon’s particular system will proliferate elsewhere, such as traditional grocery or department stores. There are also other companies and startups developing their own versions of the technology. And questions remain about the cost of installing and maintaining the tech, learning curves for consumers, and data privacy concerns.

But for NFL fans or music concert attendees who just want to grab a drink and a bite and get back to their seat without waiting in line, Just Walk Out fits the bill.

Note the little psychological trick that Amazon did (above) with the left bezel on the new Kindle Scribe. It’s now two colors, making the border of the device look thinner than the one on the first-generation Kindle Scribe.

This was an approach previously used to similar effect on the reMarkable 2.

In reality, the screen on the new Kindle Scribe is exactly the same size (10.2 inches) as the original device, as are the overall dimensions (7.7 x 9.0 inches).

It was fun to see pics of Panos Panay pitching a very different tablet!

Overall, the new Kindle Scribe looks promising, and it’s nice that the new features will also be released as a software update for the original (i.e., notetaking in the flow of a book, generative AI summaries of handwritten notes, etc.).

I just hope the new Kindle Scribe pen doesn’t feel like a plastic toy, like the first one does. The weight of the pen makes a big difference for the writing experience.

Amazon’s description makes me optimistic: “The Premium Pen is finely crafted to deliver just the right heft and balance, so it feels like holding an actual pen, and the new soft-tipped eraser feels like a pencil—you’ll think you have to brush the screen clean after erasing.”

Actually, the soft-tipped eraser sounds weird. Will reserve judgment for now.

So far, I’m finding the (color) reMarkable Paper Pro very nice for writing on a desk, a little disappointing in terms of the artifacts that happen when you write in color or erase, and way too big to try to read when lying down in bed.

Also, reMarkable still really suffers for lack of an integrated e-book store. This is the reason I’m still using my first-generation Kindle Scribe. It’s great for reading newspapers and sampling books from the Kindle Store, to wind down at night.

I’ve been underwhelmed by the washed-out colors on the reMarkable Paper Pro (see below). Not every page is this bad, some of the colors are more vivid, but this is a good example of where it might as well be black and white.

(That Seattle Times’ “Forest Feud” piece was extremely good, by the way.)

Here’s a screenshot of the PDF so you can see what the original looks like.

It will be interesting to see how the colors compare on the new Kindle Colorsoft. They look more vivid in Amazon’s photos, but the true test will be real life.

That said, I’m still a fan of the reMarkable as a notetaking device, especially when sitting on a desk, with its giant 11.8-inch display. And Amazon still hasn’t matched the seamlessness of reMarkable’s PC and mobile apps.

I get what reMarkable is doing by focusing so intensely on notes, and more power to them for their purity, I just wish someone would combine the best of both the Kindle and the reMarkable approaches.

Basically, I’d like a black-and-white reMarkable Paper Pro, with the giant screen but for considerably less than the $579 starting price, with an integrated e-book store. Is that so much to ask? (I have not tried Kobo, Onyx, etc., so fans of those devices are welcome to take me to task. My contact info is below.)

At any rate, maybe the new Scribe will be a step in this direction. Looking forward to trying it out and reporting back. The price for the new Kindle Scribe starts at $399.99 for a 16GB version with a basic pen, shipping Dec. 4.

More context and coverage in the links below.

• Today’s coverage: Amazon unveils first color Kindle, and new Kindle Scribe with ability to write directly in books
• From September: Challenged by Amazon, reMarkable unveils new ‘Paper Pro’ color tablet
• From 2022: Can the Kindle Scribe replace the yellow notepad? Notes on taking notes with Amazon’s new device