Chelsea and YouTube Form Partnership

If you can’t beat them, join them. In a first of its kind deal involving a team from the English Premiership, Chelsea have joined forces with YouTube to provide online videos including daily news updates, archive footage of Chelsea games, and other features. The videos will appear in a special Chelsea branded section on the site.

From my point of view this is a welcomed development. You’ll recall that a few months back the Premiership sent out some virtual goons who threatened to crack down on bloggers and others who posted video highlights of the league’s games. This threat, of course, didn’t exactly work and if you look at YouTube today you’ll find no shortage of Premiership-related videos. Try as they might, they can’t police everything.

By forming a partnership with the video sharing site, Chelsea will be able to control some of what is shown and to be able to speak directly to their customers and fans on a platform that attracts far more users than their official Web site. They are embracing new technology instead of running away from it. Now that they have set the example it would be hardly surprising if we see arrangements like this one made by other Premiership clubs and clubs around the world.

The winners in all of this are fans around the world. Thanks to YouTube and other video services we have more access to football highlights than ever before. What was life like before we had the chance to see football players as real human beings?

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Category: English Premier League, World Football