YouTube users are increasingly watching sports content on the streaming platform, which according to CEO Neal Mohan, is due to a shift from smartphones to televisions.
In an interview with the Financial Times on the sidelines of the Olympic Games in Paris, Mohan stated that more than 35 billion hours of sports content were watched on YouTube over the past year, representing a 45 percent increase compared to the previous year.
We've seen growth of YouTube on TV screens. It's not only the biggest screen in the house, but also our fastest growing screen," said Mohan, who has been CEO of YouTube since last year. "It's not surprising, because if you put yourself in the shoes of a consumer or sports fan, it's a great screen to consume this type of content.
YouTube, a part of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is not an official partner of the International Olympic Committee. However, the platform has agreements with some of the largest Olympic broadcasters, including NBCUniversal in the USA and Warner Bros. Discovery's Eurosport in Europe, to broadcast highlights of Paris 2024.
The platform also collaborates with influencers to provide behind-the-scenes footage and other content directly from Paris. In Latin America, YouTube streams some sports live in collaboration with Brazilian influencer Casimiro and Mexican broadcaster Claro Sports, allowing viewers to follow four events simultaneously on one screen.
Last year, YouTube began broadcasting live NFL games through a seven-year, $14 billion contract to offer the league's Sunday Ticket in the USA. Since then, the platform has also signed agreements with the Women's Super League, the top league in women's football in England, and the F1 Academy, a new motorsport series for female drivers.
In this world where viewership is so fragmented and viewers have endless options for consuming content on our mobile phones, one of the things that brings people together and creates a shared experience is sports, particularly live sports, and we see that on YouTube as well," said Mohan.
Streaming platforms are making inroads into the sports sector worldwide, although the pace varies by company. Amazon has agreements to broadcast the UEFA Champions League, the NFL, the French Open tennis tournament, and recently the NBA starting next year. AppleTV+ broadcasts live Major League Baseball games in the USA and holds global rights to Major League Soccer, while Netflix recently entered mainstream live sports for the first time and will show two NFL games on Christmas Day.
YouTube announced last week that viewership on connected TVs has increased by more than 130 percent in the past three years, with the watch time for sports content on these devices growing by 30 percent annually.
The latest quarterly report from Alphabet showed YouTube advertising revenue of $8.7 billion in the second quarter. This figure rose by 13 percent compared to the previous year but fell short of analysts' expectations of $8.9 billion, as YouTube is facing growing competition from the video app TikTok.
Despite the increasing competition in the streaming sector, Mohan said that YouTube's presence in the sports segment will grow significantly in the near future.
To use a sports analogy: We are really still at the beginning," he said. "We have been working closely with leagues around the world, with our broadcast partners and our media partners for many years. But despite these partnerships, I would say that we are still very much at the beginning of where this can develop.
