One week after we reported that the UK’s Talk Sport was to radio broadcast every English Premier League match globally (but not in Europe), another interesting football media partnership has come to the fore, this time involving video.
We already knew that online video specialists Rightster had agreed a deal with sports rights holders MP & Silva to distribute its content across a range of dedicated YouTube sports channels. And one of these channels will be of particular interest to footie fans, with Love Football hitting YouTube this week.
The channel will include highlights from Italy’s Serie A, France’s Ligue 1, US Major League Soccer, Brazil’s Serie A and the Championship, FA Cup and Football League cup from England.
Fans can subscribe to content from their favorite leagues, which includes match highlights, interviews, documentaries and behind-the-scenes footage. “Our ambition is to establish YouTube as a destination for goals and highlights and this deal adds another top league to YouTube’s football offer,” says Stephen Nuttall, Senior Director, Sports, YouTube EMEA.
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MP & Silva is a prominent media company that owns, manages and distributes television and media rights on behalf of some of the biggest sports events around the world. Rightster is an online video distribution, marketing, and monetisation company, offering content owners a myriad of services to broaden the reach and revenue of their online video.
“We’re delighted to be supporting MP & Silva with the exciting launch of the LoveFootball Channels on YouTube,” says Charlie Muirhead, Founder and CEO of Rightster. “For the first time, Rightster provides MP & Silva with centralised visibility and control of all its sports rights, including complex geographic restrictions and release windows, across both YouTube and all other platforms and publishers – allowing them to do the best possible job for each League.”
There are restrictions in place, however. For the Italian Serie A, for example, you’ll get a 1 minute clip of every goal scored, 3 minutes highlight clip of every match as well as a weekly highlights and news programme and other daily updates. Highlights will be available no more than 3 hours after the end of the match, and all goals will be available within 5 hours of the end of the match.
The nature of sports content rights mean that separate deals are in place for different countries – Serie A will be available globally, but not in Italy. As for the French Ligue 1, this will be available in Europe (except France and Spain), Asia, Sub-saharan Africa, and Oceania. The English Championship and Football League Cup will only be available in Asia, though the FA Cup will be available in Asia (but not Thailand) and a handful of European countries – Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Portugal, Austria and Switzerland.
The one big omission here, of course, is the English Premier League which has pretty tight controls over its global rights. Alternative for this include ESPN Goals in the UK, as well as ESPN FC which is available globally.
Feature Image Credit: Ewiemann | Flickr
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