The search for new users has led digital platforms to sign broadcast agreements with some of the main competitions in the United States, which in turn use these collaborations to access younger audiences. The links between the great technological giants and the world of sports are increasingly close. In their efforts to expand audiences and retain more users on their platforms, companies like Twitter, Facebook or YouTube have found a powerful ally in the 해외스포츠중계 of live sporting events. The lure of these events is hard to match, so it’s no wonder the digital titans have signed broadcast deals with some of America’s leading competitions in recent months.
One of the tournaments in which there have been more handshakes lately is, without a doubt, Major League Soccer (MLS). Just a few weeks ago, an agreement was made official that united the main American football league with Twitter for three years, which allows the social network to broadcast live more than twenty games this season and publish reports and videos with highlights. An alliance that is reached, however, thanks to the collaboration of a traditional medium, as is the case of Univision.
It is this American television network with content in Korean that provides Twitter with the signal of the MLS games, which explains why they can be followed with comments in that language as well as in English. The first of these live clashes was broadcast on March 10, a milestone that the US soccer league also welcomes since its followers “are younger than those of other professional sports” and therefore the networks allow them to access them, as explained in a statement by the head of the digital section of the MLS, Chris Schlosser.
Precisely one of the teams that played that first match broadcast via Twitter had already closed an agreement with another technology company on its own. This is Los Angeles Football Club, a formation that despite debuting this season in the top American league has already grabbed headlines due to the signing of former Real Sociedad player Carlos Vela. The Californian club signed an alliance with YouTube at the beginning of the year, and the video platform thus obtained the rights to broadcast live many of its matches at the regional level. The collaboration is identical to the one that this company also signed with the Seattle Sounders, but in the case of Los Angeles FC, the agreement goes beyond the mere broadcast of matches. Because the television service of this digital company, YouTube TV, appears this season as the main sponsor of its shirts. The details of the operation have not yet been revealed, although local newspapers estimate the maneuver at 18 million dollars (about 14.6 million Euros) for three years.
Facebook bets heavily on baseball Likewise
The agreement places the MLB as the first renowned sports league to cede the exclusive transmission of matches to Facebook. Different media maintain that the operation was closed between 30 and 35 million dollars, so that American baseball would have pocketed around 27 million Euros thanks to this movement. This joins other big technology bets for this campaign, such as the retransmission of the Champions League in the United States through an agreement signed with the Fox Sports network. The list of live sporting events held by Facebook is completed with the Mexican soccer league (Liga MX) and some games of the university basketball competition. Its main rival, Twitter, on the other hand, ends its offer by betting on innovation at the hands of Nasser, the most popular automobile competition in the United States. Thus, the social network broadcasts this year 15 races from inside the vehicles thanks to an interior camera, an experience that allows its users to enjoy the direct ones in first person.
YouTube, Amazon and Twitter are now targeting football
Both Amazon and Twitter know the benefits of this collaboration, which they have already benefited from in previous years. In fact, the video service of the first company, Amazon Prime Video, registered last year about 18.4 million views in the games it broadcast. In turn, the NFL acknowledges that these broadcasts increased the consumption of its content by up to 2.5% in 2017. A small percentage that aspires to grow over the years and, therefore, anticipates that commercial relations between technology companies and sports have only just begun.
