Amazon is in talks with several leagues, including the National Basketball Association, National Football League, Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball, as well as programmers as it considers adding a premium live sports package to its subscription-based Prime offering, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The paper said Amazon is interested in securing rights to drive more consumers to its $99 per year Prime offering, as well as a skinny bundle of pay TV channels. Amazon said back in 2014 that it was not planning to license television channels or to offer a pay-TV service, but that stance might have changed.

Amazon’s purported interest in adding live sports would come as several major sports leagues continue to open up OTT distribution deals with outlets such as Twitter.

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The WSJ said Amazon have also approached traditional TV networks, including Univision, about sports rights they aren’t using, as well as ESPN, One World Sports, Campus Insiders, and the World Surf League, among others.

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In the meantime, Amazon has put a heavy emphasis on SVOD as it gears up for an anticipated global expansion. In addition to selling its own Prime offering, Amazon has also attracted several programmers and media companies to its Streaming Partners Program.

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New York -- Amazon’s Streaming Partners Program, an  initiative launched last year for the company’s popular Prime service, has been a hit with consumers and content partners that are filling it with specialized SVOD-OTT services as the offering nears its first year on the market.

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“The demand has been incredible,” Michael Paull, vice president, digital video at Amazon, said in a keynote conversation here Thursday at the Multichannel News/Broadcasting & CableOn Demand conference. “It’s been a great year.”

Amazon launched the program in December 2015, offering easy access to a wide range of SVOD services from partners such as Showtime, Starz and Seeso (from NBCU) that is available on top of Amazon Prime. Paull said 75 partners are now on board with the program, which handles key elements such as billing, customer care and the streaming platform that underpins the delivery to a wide range of devices and platforms.

When Amazon approached programmers and other content suppliers about joining the program, Paull acknowledged that the initial conversations were sensitive because they were concerned about how the new offering would respect their brands.

“We have leaned into their brands,” he said, noting that a partner’s brand is front and center when Amazon Prime users search for an SVOD offering or an individual show that’s offered therein.

He said the program has not cannibalized the viewing market, but has helped partners add incremental subs. “As far as we can tell, we’ve grown the market,” Paull said in a discussion with Mark Robichaux, editorial director of Multichannel News and B&C.

Paull discussed how the program, and its integration of billing and provisioning, removes friction from the subscription process, noting that it takes just two clicks for an Amazon Prime user to subscribe to a service, while others need between six to 12 clicks.

“We provide one unified experience that was simple and easy to use,” Paull said, adding that Amazon also brings them a massive audience to market to.

Paull also said Amazon’s access to data, used for the main Amazon offerings, is also being applied to video and helping to connect users with shows and movies they might like – and present that to the right person at the right time.

For example, with the third season of Power, Amazon noticed that a huge part of that audience was also watching similar programing like Empire.

“The more time [viewers] spend with us, the better the connection they will have with us, and that will allow us to serve all their needs,” Paull said.

As for what’s on the horizon, expect Amazon, which has been rumored to be pursuing live TV rights for its OTT platform, to continue to expand on the video options it makes available on its platform.

Amazon, Paull said, is looking to offer “a complete digital video experience.”

Amazon Video said Seeso, NBCUniversal’s subscription OTT comedy service, is now available to Prime members for an additional $3.99 per month.

Seeso announced last month that it would become part of the Amazon mix in the “coming weeks."  Seeso launched on January 7 and has not released viewership numbers, but the Amazon deal will open up a new way to acquire subscribers.

Seeso is one of a growing number of OTT providers to join Amazon’s Streaming Partners Program, a service launched late last year that handles elements such as subscriber acquisition, billing (using the subscriber’s credit cards that are on file with Amazon), customer service, content delivery via Amazon’s streaming infrastructure, and device compatibility management.

Seeso will compete with other comedy-focused offerings available via Amazon Prime, including Comedy Central Stand-Up Plus and Comedy Dynamics, which each cost $3.99 per month.

Other Amazon streaming partners include Showtime, Starz, Acorn TV, CuriosityStream, DramaFever, Shudder, Urban Movie Channel, and FlixFling, among others.

Pushing the needle with OTT, direct-to-consumer video options, Amazon has begun to sell standalone access to Showtime and Starz and other services to its Prime membership base without the need for a separate cable subscription through a new initiative called the Streaming Partners Program.

Showtime and Starz, offered for $8.99 per month each following a free seven-day trial, are two of a batch of other “featured” add-on subscriptions offered via Amazon Prime. Overall, Amazon Prime’s add-on subscriptions feature dozens of offerings, including Acorn TV, Comedy Central Stand-Up Plus, Lifetime Movie Club, Gaia, and Qello Concerts. Others on board with the Amazon streaming program include DramaFever Instant, Shudder, CuriosityStream, Smithsonian Earth, and Urban Movie Channel.

Starz’s involvement comes soon after the programmer’s CEO, Chris Albrecht, indicated that  Starz was closing in on deals for OTT distribution. Showtime, meanwhile, launched a standalone OTT service over the summer year that regularly sells for $10.99 per month (and $9.99 per month to Sony PlayStation Plus members), and as a bundle with Hulu.

Amazon said the new Streaming Partners program  enable its partners to reach “tens of millions” of Prime subscribers. Under the program, Amazon said it’s responsible for driving all subscriber acquisition, billing (using the subscriber’s credit cards that are on file with Amazon), customer service, delivering content through its streaming infrastructure, and managing device compatibility.

Early on, content via the program is offered on the Amazon Video app on TVs, streaming media players, mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire tablets, or on the Web at Amazon.com/amazonvideo.

Other perks include a unified “Watchlist” across all subscriptions, IMDb “X-ray” integration, unified voice search on Fire TV, and making partners’ newest episodes simultaneous with broadcast.

“The way people watch TV is changing, and customers need an easier way to subscribe to and enjoy multiple streaming subscriptions,” said Michael Paull, VP of digital video at Amazon, in a statement. “With the Streaming Partners Program, we’re making it easy for video providers to reach highly engaged Prime members, many of whom are already frequent streamers, and we’re making it easier for viewers to watch their favorite shows and channels.”

The offering’s launch partners include: Showtime, Starz, A+E Network (Lifetime Movie Club), AMC (Shudder and SundanceNow Doc Club), Gaia, RLJ Entertainment (Acorn TV, Urban Movie Channel, Acacia TV), DramaFever (DramaFever Instant), Tribeca Short List, Cinedigm (Dove Channel, Docurama, CONtv), Smithsonian (Smithsonian Earth), IndieFlix (IndieFlix Shorts), CuriosityStream, Qello, FlixFling (Cinefest, Nature Vision, Warriors and Gangsters, Dox, Monsters and Nightmares), BroadbandTV (Hooplakidz Plus), DEFY Media (ScreenJunkies Plus), Gravitas (Film Forum, Daring Docs, Fear Factory), and Ring TV Boxing.