up 26 percent from a year earlier and ahead of consensus, as live sports inventory on Prime Video continues to convert at prices that make the broadcast-rights bill look like a rounding error. The company said brands buying across multiple sports, NFL, NBA, WNBA, NASCAR, more than doubled their unduplicated reach versus single-sport buyers, while multisport viewers spent 12 percent more and placed 17 percent more orders on Amazon. Chief Executive Andy Jassy told investors Thursday that inventory for “Thursday Night Football,” the NBA, WNBA and NASCAR all sold out, and that the first year of NBA rights brought more than 30 new advertisers to the league on Prime Video.
Sponsored product listings remain the largest and fastest-growing piece of the ad business, but the sports foothold is now material enough to move the segment needle. The upfront market, wrapped earlier this month, beat Amazon’s volume targets and grew year over year, according to Adweek. Non-sports originals are also drawing scale: the romantic drama “Off Campus” pulled 36 million global viewers in its first 12 days with a Liquid I.V. integration, and the “Legally Blonde” prequel “Elle” launched last month backed by a L’Oréal Paris co-marketing deal.
On the technology side, Jassy said advertisers using Amazon’s Ads Agent, an AI tool that automates campaign setup and targeting, saw cost per impression fall 8 percent and cost per acquisition drop 6 percent. The tool has expanded to 11 new countries this year.
The earnings call was not all leverage. Amazon raised its 2026 capital-expenditure forecast to $220 billion, a $20 billion increase from the prior guide, almost entirely tied to AI infrastructure build-out. While peers have been punished for similar spending jumps this season, Amazon shares traded higher after hours as investors digested 36.7 percent year-over-year growth in Amazon Web Services, the profit engine that still funds the experiment.
What to watch: whether the sports-driven ad premium holds once the novelty of new inventory wears off, and whether AWS growth can sustain the capex trajectory without compressing consolidated operating margins.