For such a potentially beneficial addition, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) certainly isn’t shouting about its new English Premier League video highlights, which debuted in Britain this weekend.
On the Monday morning after the league’s opening weekend, there’s no mention of the videos on Yahoo’s UK homepage at all.
However, they seem perfectly happy in the Yahoo Sport site’s Football section, with pre-roll sponsorships from brands like Adidas, Heineken, BT (NYSE: BT) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures. Videos, naturally, go along with text match reports and previews, many written by Eurosport.
Until this season, Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) had held the Premier League online highlights rights, which Yahoo won in April – but they didn’t exactly make a big noise about them either, and e weren’t especially aware of football fans visiting virginmedia.com in their droves to catch up with the weekend’s action.
This content could be a big audience draw if done right. It also means a happy bonus for Eurosport – it also gets the videos by virtue of the fact its website is run as a joint venture by Yahoo.
Yahoo has been driving its football connections during the summer with a deal that shows its logo behind David Beckham at appearances and interviews.
The Premier League videos cannot be embedded elsewhere.