The NBA has signed a short-term agreement with YouTube to offer game, along with user-generated highlights, that can now be uploaded to a dedicated channel. This is the second major league to sign up with YouTube. In November the NHL made a similar deal with the site.
The NBA is also in negotiations with other social-networking sites FaceBook, MySpace and Second Life.
For the YouTube channel, the NBA will start it up this month and it will run all the way through the NBA Finals. The NBA deal seems to be courting more user-generated material to make it more interesting to the fans.
The reason for the short-term deal, according to the league is to take the time to experiment while the league figures out what the best way to deal with digital media will be. They want to do it before they enter into their long-term national television deals which are expiring at the end of this season with ESPN/ABC (DIS) and Turner.
“There are so many unknown variables on how the deals will be monetized for both sides,” said NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver. “We are in the experimental stages where we can take NBA content and experiment and get a sense of what the interest is. The jury is still out for the best way to advertise.”
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