NFL signs YouTube partnership

American football league the NFL has signed a partnership with YouTube creating an official channel for the organisation on the video-sharing platform.

Terms of the multi-year deal between the NFL and YouTube’s parent company Google were not disclosed, but it will cover video distribution and advertising sales on YouTube, as well as prominence for NFL clips on Google’s search service.

The Wall Street Journal said Google has agreed to pay the NFL a multimillion dollar sum annually for the rights to host the NFL channel. Google will be responsible for advertising sales for the channel, with the newspaper reporting it will split further revenue with the league once its initial annual rights fee has been recouped.

Content posted daily to the YouTube channel by the league will include game previews, in-game highlights, post-game summaries and clips featuring news, analysis, fantasy football advice and other original programming from league-owned pay-television broadcaster NFL Network and NFL.com.

Game highlights and other content will also be available through Google’s search engine, which will display official NFL videos along with related news and information in a box at the top of the page.

“We’ve been talking to the Google family for years, and finally found the opportunity to partner,” Hans Schroeder, NFL senior vice-president of media strategy, business development and sales, told the Journal. “We sort of wanted to wait for the right deal. It maybe took longer to get there. But this deal has the right level of appreciation on both sides.”

Concerning the potential for the YouTube channel to host live streaming of games, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told the Associated Press news agency that “the focus is on non-live highlights.” He added that “the agreement will provide tremendous exposure for our broadcast partners.”

The NFL’s partnership with YouTube comes after the league last month signed a deal with Facebook to offer short video clips on the social networking platform.