Yahoo Sports, NBC, NFL Reach Deal To Expand "SNF" Live Streams

By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

Yahoo Sports, the NFL, and NBC have struck a three-way deal in which Yahoo will help drive additional consumption of the existing live online streams of NBC’s Sunday night NFL coverage by offering the NBC video player and live feed within Yahoo Sports. The deal, underway since late last month on an unpublicized beta test basis, bears some similarity to an earlier Yahoo deal with MLB in which it also co-hosts the MLB.tv package of live games. But in this case, Yahoo will not sell advertising for the NFL games, as it does for baseball, and will instead participate in a revenue share of advertising sales handled by NBC. Officials for all three companies declined to specify the amount of online traffic generated from the Sunday night game, but said they were pleased with the initial results. Yahoo Sports & Entertainment VP & GM Jimmy Pitaro said 30% of the traffic in the last three weeks to the Sunday night games has arrived from his site. “This plays directly into our desire to be the partner of choice among the major sports properties,” Pitaro said.

RINGING ENDORSEMENT: Meanwhile, Yahoo has also struck a deal with Golden Boy Enterprises-owned The Ring Magazine to produce co-branded boxing content with Yahoo Sports’ boxing page. The effort will involve collaborative editorial projects, as well as a Yahoo-led digitization of The Ring’s archives, dating to 1922.