It was reported earlier this month that BT Sport, in response to their struggling ratings, would be broadcasting the UEFA Champions League and Europa League finals via YouTube. The decision to team up with the online video platform was so they could make the games as accessible as possible and hopefully bring in more than the average 200,000 viewers they had throughout the season.
So did their experiment work with the Champions League Final last week work? We would say so.
Between the two games, they were able to attract 3 million viewers through YouTube and a total of over 12 million overall when including their other outlets (BT.com, the BT Sport App and their TV channels).
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While this number may seem low in comparison to the total number of soccer fans around the globe, the free stream was only available in the UK where only one of the four final-bound teams was from. It was also the first time they had done something like this, meaning many fans may have not even known about it since the announcement was made only days before the Europa League final on May 18th. Either way, these numbers show to be a huge improvement when compared to the previous ratings.
#UCLFinal is free for all!
@btsport Europe & @btsport Showcase
https://t.co/hibH4Mjeb3
https://t.co/R7RIlichPo pic.twitter.com/U0NQJomTWa
— BT Sport Football (@btsportfootball) May 28, 2016
“BT Sport set out to begin a new era of live mass broadcast for major sporting events, combining TV and digital media to make this the most widely available and social broadcast of a UEFA Champions League and Europa League final ever,” said managing director of BT Sport & TV Delia Bushell.
After all of this success though, YouTube will not be putting in a bid for the Premier League rights. Even so, it would be wrong to think that it may never happen. Twitter made bids against Verizon, Yahoo, and Amazon to win broadcasting rights for the NFL so who knows? Premier League fans may be able to make YouTube (or a social media platform) their main source for games in the near future.