Discovery, the US-based media giant, has struck a content and advertising partnership with social media giant YouTube, based around the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games.
The partnership will entail the Eurosport YouTube channel (pan-continental broadcaster Eurosport being owned by Discovery), showing a wide range of Olympics-based content throughout the games, which start later this month.
This will include on-demand highlights, daily recaps of all the action from each day’s key stories and events, on-demand features on specific athletes, entertaining games moments, and key analysis.
The Tokyo Olympics, delayed by 12 months from last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, start on 23 July, and are the first summer edition in Discovery’s 2018-24 rights deal for Europe (excluding Russia) with the International Olympic Committee.
The channel will also present live streaming footage of the both the opening and closing ceremonies, in both English and German.
All these features will be available across the continent.
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By GlobalDataDiscovery will show all the Tokyo 2020 action live across Eurosport's linear channels, as well as through its various over-the-top and mobile platforms, including on the recently-launched Discovery+, the OTT streaming platform for entertainment, factual, lifestyle and sports programming which is currently available in eight European countries (Denmark, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Spain and the UK) and the US.
Scott Young, head of sports production and content at Discovery Sports, said: “Working with YouTube to provide on-demand Tokyo 2020 content is a great opportunity to make new connections with audiences. It offers them new ways to find our content and be introduced to Discovery’s full Olympic Games offer.”
Discovery also has similar collaborations in place for the Olympics with social media giants Snapchat and Twitter.
Eurosport will publish real-time Olympics highlights on Twitter to complement its comprehensive coverage on Eurosport digital properties, and is offering IOC TOP sponsors dedicated advertising opportunities for Twitter content.
Rob Pilgrim, head of sport for YouTube in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, added: “Every competing nation follows their athletes’ highs and lows so avidly, and we are delighted to have Discovery and Eurosport partner with YouTube to reach new and different audiences.”
Meanwhile, Seven Network, the Olympics broadcaster in Australia, is to offer selected content from this year's games via Twitter in an expansion of the long-running strategic partnership between the two organisations.
Seven will provide five minutes of footage, up to eight times a day, of popular sports including athletics, swimming and surfing.
In addition, an Olympics version of its sports show Armchair Experts will be available on streaming service 7plus and Twitter.
Twitter has worked with Seven on the latter's previous coverage of Olympics, but this is the first time live streams of the games have been offered on a partner platform in the country.
The tie-up also provides additional exposure for sponsors of Seven's Olympics coverage including McDonald's, Toyota and AAMI.