What Happened
Yahoo continues its push into live sports streaming as it inks a new partnership with the National Hockey League (NHL) to deliver live, out-of-market games for free. Starting today, hockey fans will be able to stream the NHL “Game of the Day” up to four days per week on Yahoo’s website. Yahoo will also provide additional content, “Best of the Day” and “Best of the Week,” to highlight top plays and postgame happenings during each of these games. The deal will last throughout the 2016-17 NHL regular season.
Market Impact
Yahoo’s bid for live-streaming sports started last fall, when it successfully drew 15.2 million total viewers with an exclusively live-streamed NFL game. With this new partnership, Yahoo is making NHL content more accessible, as it continues to chase the coveted millennial market whose viewing habits are increasingly transitioning to time-shifted viewing on Appified TV (to read more on this, check out our Outlook 2016 here). For NHL sponsors and brands advertising in NHL games, this deal should come as good news as they gain a digital channel that will help them reach online viewers.
Source: Variety