Sports Media Report
Yahoo! Inc. and the National Hockey League this week announced a strategic alliance to deliver premium sports content to Yahoo Sports’ millions of users. Now fans can access live, out-of-market NHL games for free on Yahoo, throughout the week, no cable subscription or authentication required. Yahoo will offer unique advertising opportunities for brands to connect with their audiences, alongside and within this live and on-demand sports contents.
Beginning March 11, Yahoo Sports, in collaboration with the NHL, will live stream an NHL “Game of the Day” to hockey fans in the U.S., up to four days a week, along with delivering in-game highlights for each game. This is in addition to the Wednesday and Sunday national NHL games currently promoted by Yahoo to its fans in partnership with NBC Sports Group. Yahoo will also provide condensed games, “Best of the Day” and “Best of the Week” top plays and postgame highlights. Yahoo Sports also will continue to bring fantasy hockey highlights and our season-long game to fans around the world.
“This alliance brings us one step closer to providing fans a live professional sporting event every day, on Yahoo, completely frictionless and for free – no cable subscription or authentication required,” said Phil Lynch, VP, Media Partnerships at Yahoo. “We remain committed to delivering the best digital content to our users and advertisers, and the NHL’s premium content nicely complements our offering of live and on-demand partner content, including Yahoo/MLB’s Game of the Day, Yahoo/NBC Sports content and our recently announced deal with the PGA TOUR.”
Building on the success of the NFL live stream on Yahoo which drew more than 15 million viewers, Yahoo is introducing new video advertising opportunities that will run within commercial breaks during the live streams of live sporting events, which includes NHL and MLB games. Brands will have new ways to connect directly with an engaged audience of sports fans around this live video programming on Yahoo Sports, while using Yahoo’s audience insights and retargeting capabilities to engage with viewers after a game concludes.
