NFL expands deal with YouTube
More NFL clips are coming to YouTube.
The National Football League and YouTube announced Thursday a multiyear renewal of their partnership.
The NFL will post three of the most memorable games for each of the 32 franchises to its official YouTube channel prior to the start of the 2016-17 season. Additionally, the NFL will also up the number of in-game highlight clips it uploads to Google-owned YouTube.
The deal underscores YouTube’s interest in sports. It follows last week’s NBA deal, in which the basketball league will make all of its content on YouTube available to ad buyers under the Google Preferred program.
The NFL deal will also make more of that league’s content available through Google Search, including in-game highlights. That means, when searching a specific NFL team in Google, an official NFL video will display along with related news in a dedicated box at the top of the search results.
“This expansion of our partnership will make it easier than ever for the millions of highly engaged avid and casual fans on YouTube and Google to discover and access an even greater variety of some of the most valuable content in the sports and entertainment business,” Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s senior vice president of media strategy, business development and sales, said in a statement.
Added Jonathan Zepp, YouTube’s head of North America direct content partnerships: “YouTube has always been the home for sports highlights on the Internet, and we look forward to giving football fans around the globe access to even more of the content they love.”
Since the NFL channel launched in January 2015, the league’s content has generated nearly 900 million views. Viewers of the channel have access to game previews, in-game highlights, postgame recaps and other content from NFL Media properties.
The new pact also deepens the NFL’s relationships with big digital platforms. Last month, the league announced an agreement that allows Twitter to stream 10 live NFL games this fall. It also has a deal in place with Snapchat, which partnered with the league to bring photos and videos from around the league into the company’s Live Stories feature.
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