Google Sees a New Role for YouTube: An Outlet for Live Sports

Google's subsidiary YouTube carried the Indian Premier League's 60 matches live around the world, except in the United States, the first time the company has broadcast a major sporting event.

About 50 million viewers tuned in to YouTube's IPL channel, 25 percent more than Google executives said they expected when they signed the deal in January. Approximately 40 percent of those viewers were outside India. Google signed on seven advertisers in India, including Coca-Cola and Hewlett-Packard, two in Britain and one in the United States, where YouTube showed matches 15 minutes after they finished. Now Google is shopping for other events to show on YouTube in real time, a plan that could shake up the sports broadcasting world. To date, though, live sports viewing on the Internet has been hampered by slow broadband speeds, and the reluctance of sports leagues to cannibalize profits that come from traditional broadcasters. Some broadcasters, like ESPN, predominantly show events online that they do not carry on television.