NBC Sports and Yahoo Sports do not have a deal to collaborate for this month’s Rio Games, placing some distance within their nearly 4-year-old digital alliance during one of the largest sporting events in the world.
The two entities worked together extensively during the 2014 Sochi Games to jointly promote video highlights, editorial content and live video, adding to a partnership first struck in 2012 and then extended last December for another three years. That original 2012 partnership did not include Sochi and the renewal similarly excluded Rio.
But in contrast to Sochi where NBC Sports and Yahoo Sports struck a supplemental deal in December 2013 to work together during that Olympics, a tack-on agreement for Rio has not materialized, despite extensive talks.
NBC Sports said in a statement that it continues “to discuss an Olympic collaboration with Yahoo on top of our existing sports relationship,” mirroring comments from late last year in which they said striking a deal for Rio was a goal. But with the opening ceremony scheduled for Friday, the chances of an extensive deal resembling what occurred for Sochi, including content development and Yahoo Sports personnel working at NBC Sports’ digital facilities in Stamford, Conn., are remote.
Yahoo Sports did not comment.
Aside from Rio, the core digital partnership between NBC Sports and Yahoo Sports remains intact. That deal has created what is in most months the second-most visited entity in U.S. digital sports media behind ESPN, and last year generated a variety of internal traffic records. But Yahoo Sports is now in transition as Verizon last week announced a $4.83 billion acquisition of Yahoo’s core assets. It is expected the Yahoo brand names, including Yahoo Sports, will remain as Verizon integrates the company into its existing AOL assets. But specific operational plans have not been disclosed.
