Claude Ruibal talks about Google/YouTube's four 'big rocks'

In the featured presentation on Wednesday afternoon, Claude Ruibal, Google/YouTube's global head of sports content, took the opportunity to tell his audience of more than 400 sports business executives what YouTube is and isn't. "We're a distribution platform,' said Ruibal. "There always seems to be confusion about what we're doing in sports. I was enjoying (ESPN's) John Skipper's conversation with David Stern at this morning's session, about whether Google or Facebook or others were going to be buying rights for distribution on their platforms -- whether a technology company could become a content company. We're not in the rights-buying business. We're a distribution company.

"We partner with rights owners," Ruibal continued. "We partner with broadcasters to help them distribute across OUR platform using THEIR brand. We're not creators of content and we're not curators of content. We try to be additive, not competitive." Ruibal made it clear there will many more sports channels to come on YouTube: "They will be very niche-oriented. Yoga, wrestling, fencing, gymnastics. We think they'll be able to aggregate a global audience around these sports effectively because of our broad reach and scale." Ruibal cited deals with Major League Soccer (Kick TV), the U.S. Olympic Committee, Tony Hawk and WWE as recent examples of brands maximizing the benefits of having their own YouTube channels.Ruibal told the audience that YouTube is focused on four "big rocks." He identified them as:
- Surround Live: "Working with existing content in a catch-up environment."
- Serve Under-served Audiences: "Provide live content for audiences who currently can't get it where they live."
- More Immersive Context: "More context around what we're showing on You Tube. A good example is what we're doing with America's Cup.”
- Finding Undistributed Content: "Not just launching new content, but finding content with leagues and other organizations that isn't being broadcast today."
With 800 million unique visitors per month and four billion hours of content per month, Ruibal said that YouTube is only getting started and welcomes all varieties of sports content.