Amazon, Netflix and YouTube Launch a Streaming Policy Group

Amazon, Netflix and YouTube have formed the Streaming Access and Choice Alliance, a coalition that will lobby for the three streamers in Washington. The group launched on 14 September and is run by TechNet, the technology industry trade group.

TechNet’s announcement says the alliance will push for technology-neutral policies that let streaming services invest in a wide range of programming, including live sports. Mike Ward, TechNet’s senior vice president of federal policy and government relations, leads it.

Why Sports Rights Sit at the Center

The launch follows months of federal scrutiny of how sports rights are sold. In February the Federal Communications Commission opened a review of live sports moving from broadcast television to pay TV and subscription streaming, Reuters reported, and asked for public comment on the shift.

The FCC’s public notice pointed out that 20 NFL regular-season games streamed exclusively on Prime Video, YouTube, Peacock and Netflix in 2025. Three of those four services belong to the alliance’s founding members.

Ward framed the coalition around viewers. “Americans want more content choices and flexibility in how and where they watch their favorite programming, including sports and other live events,” he said. TechNet says the alliance will advocate for policies that expand consumer access, preserve choice and support new viewing experiences.

The alliance’s own policy platform states that it supports an environment that enables sports leagues and rights holders to pursue distribution partnerships that deliver consumer value, which puts the group on the side of keeping exclusive streaming rights deals available.

What Is at Stake for Advertisers

Live sports is the scarcest premium inventory in video advertising, and more of it is moving to streaming. The Keyword covered Prime Video’s push into live sports in February 2025, and YouTube was reported ahead of Netflix in the streaming market that June.

Each game that moves to a streamer takes its ad inventory with it. Buyers who want an NFL audience already plan across broadcast networks and several streaming services, each with its own buying platform and measurement. The federal review will shape whether that split keeps widening.

Rules on how leagues pool and sell their rights also decide who can bid. If regulators make exclusive streaming deals harder to sign, broadcast networks keep more of the premium games. If the current rules hold, the three alliance members stay in a strong position to buy more of them.

The buying route changes too. Ad time in a game streamed on Prime Video, YouTube or Netflix is sold through that company’s own ad sales, targeting and first-party data rather than a broadcast network’s. For brands, the policy fight is also a fight over which platforms their sports budgets run through.

Streamers Have Organised Before

Streaming companies have formed single-issue coalitions in the past. In 2023 Netflix, Disney, Peacock and others launched the Streaming Innovation Alliance, which challenged local broadcasters at the FCC.

The new group is narrower. Its three founders are the tech-owned streamers with no broadcast network behind them, which gives them a shared interest in how sports rights are regulated that the wider industry does not have.

The alliance also lets the three companies make the case for streaming as one industry while they compete for the same rights and ad budgets. Netflix has argued that its competition now reaches well beyond other streaming services, a point The Keyword covered in January.