In its continued effort to become a full-time destination for sports, Amazon will have its own lineup of daily talk shows from morning to night, The Post has learned.
While Amazon Prime Video spent billions to be the exclusive home of “Thursday Night Football,” it has taken more of a “Moneyball” approach to its 8 a.m.-to-8 p.m. schedule, which will feature some familiar names, but mostly what Amazon hopes are the continued growth of up-and-comers.
The seven shows will feature a variety of hosts, including Cari Champion, Master Tesfatsion and Rennae Stubbs. Airing for free over Amazon Prime Video and its other audio and visual platforms, “Sports Talk” is going to try to zig a little as the ESPNs and the FS1s hot take all day. It will also try to use Amazon’s global reach to talk about more than just American sports.
The shows are being produced in conjunction with Sony’s Embassy Row, which was founded by Men in Blazers star Michael Davies, who is also the executive producer of “Jeopardy!”
“We talked to Michael a lot about this,” Marie Donoghue, Amazon’s vice president of Global Sports Video, told The Post. “We think there is an opportunity for new emerging voices and a positive, uplifting take on sports.
“We are dipping our toe. We’re testing and learning, but we are very excited about it.”
The shows will not feature any highlights.
“We want to push the talent and the producers to take this approach and have more deeper and interesting conversations,” Donoghue said. “Nothing is set in stone so we will iterate and adapt, but that’s how we want to go out.”
Amazon’s platform is structured differently than a cable network, where there is a continuous lineup to fill out.
The schedule will start from 8-10 a.m. with “Bonjour Sports Talk,” featuring hosts Madelyn Burke and Ben Lyons. “Bonjour Sports Talk” will be replayed from 10 a.m. to noon before “The Cari Champion Show” has its two-hour block. Champion is followed by “Sports Talk Game Breakers” with the comedic duo of Eitan Levine and Drexton Clemons for two hours and then an hour each for Tesfatsion’s “From the Desk of Master T” and Stubbs’ “The Power Hour.” At 6 p.m., “The Greatest Hour of All-Time (GHOAT)” will highlight one hour from the day’s programming. At 7-8 p.m, “The Backup Plan” with Hana Ostapchuk and Jason Spells will have highlights from the earlier shows and talk sports and pop culture. The shows will all eventually be available on demand.
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