YouTube Expand Sports B’cast Commitment with Copa America Deal

YouTube has expanded its commitment to sports broadcasting by announcing it will stream the upcoming Copa America live to more than 50 countries around the world, showing all 26 Copa America matches live of the tournament running from July 1-24 in Argentina.

YouTube released a statement reading: “Fans will have access to all 26 matches including pool play, semi-finals, quarter-finals and the championship match, live streaming as they happen with exclusive-to-YouTube commentary, as well as a highlights from all the matches, goal compilations, full-game uploads and more.”

Earlier this year the Google-owned website confirmed it was in talks to air live games from the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League as well as European soccer leagues to broadcast coverage having successfully negotiated terms with Times India for rights to the Indian Premier League (IPL).

In February, Gautam Anand, Google’s director of content partnerships for Asia-Pacific, told Bloomberg that YouTube would aim to carry more live sports from the second half of 2011, adding: “It is fair to say that there will be a lot more appealing sports content you’ll see on YouTube. We have ongoing conversations with pretty much everyone.”