Amazon has reportedly held talks with some of the UK’s leading internet providers over concerns that next week’s Premier League matches could cause capacity issues.
Prime Video won the rights to all of next week’s midweek games, including the Merseyside derby. It will livestream two matches on Tuesday, six on Wednesday, and another two on Thursday.
According to The Times, Amazon is concerned of a possible repeat of the difficulties viewers encountered in 2018 when it first began streaming the US Open tennis.
It says the company has been in talks with Sky, TalkTalk and BT to ensure the necessary bandwidth will be in place to accommodate the demand for matches.
The Times claims it has spoken to Amazon employees who have expressed concerns that the company has underestimated the technical and production elements required to livestream games to millions of viewers at the same time.
Meanwhile, an Amazon source told the Daily Mail, “Amazon know this will be one of the biggest streaming events in the UK and has been proactively working with UK broadband providers for months to ensure they have capacity to meet customer demand.”
