The National Football League (NFL) and YouTube today announced a renewal to their strategic partnership, strengthening the relationship between the world's most popular sports league and video platform.
Since launching its channel in 2015, NFL content on YouTube has garnered almost 900 million views. As part of the multi-year renewal, the official NFL channel on YouTube.com/NFL will contain an expanded amount of content, providing fans an even greater variety of NFL video to watch on PCs, tablets, and mobile phones around the world.
Today, the NFL's official channel on YouTube carries game previews, in-game highlights, post-game recaps as well as clips featuring news, analysis, fantasy football advice, and other select content from NFL Media properties.
As part of the renewal, and for the first time ever on YouTube, the NFL will make available some of the most exciting games in NFL history. Three of the most memorable games for each of the 32 clubs in the NFL will be posted to the NFL's official channel on YouTube prior to the start of the 2016 season.
Additionally, more NFL content, including game highlights uploaded to YouTube while games are in progress, will be available through Google Search. A simple Google search for NFL team will display official NFL video along with related news and information all delivered to the user in one distinct box at the top of the search results. Kickoff time and broadcast information for every NFL game will also be prominently displayed in Google Search.
"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," said Hans Schroeder, Senior Vice President, Media Strategy, Business Development, & Sales for the National Football League. "Our fans continue to demonstrate an insatiable appetite for NFL digital video content online."
"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," said Jonathan Zepp, head of North America Direct Content Partnerships, YouTube.
NFL content has never been more popular across the media landscape. According to the Nielsen Company, 199 million people tuned into the 2015 NFL regular season representing 78 percent of all television homes and 67 percent of potential viewers in the U.S. NFL games accounted for the top 25 and 46 of the 50 most-watched TV shows among all programming in 2015.