The Oscars® revolutionary partnership with YouTube could give golf and sports bodies food for thought

THE ACADEMY PARTNERS WITH YOUTUBE FOR EXCLUSIVE GLOBAL RIGHTS TO THE OSCARS® AND OTHER ACADEMY CONTENT STARTING IN 2029

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts has today confirmed it has signed an exclusive worldwide deal with YouTube, which will see the iconic OSCARS ceremony broadcast and streamed exclusively worldwide on the platform and YouTube TV in the United States. The initial deal will run from 2029 to 2033, and whilst it is far from being the first major event to be broadcast on YouTube, it is unquestionably the biggest ever to be exclusively available on YouTube.

A press release sent out this evening said: The Oscars, including red carpet coverage, behind-the-scenes content, Governors Ball access, and more, will be available live and for free to over 2 billion viewers around the world on YouTube, and to YouTube TV subscribers in the United States. YouTube will help make the Oscars accessible to the Academy’s growing global audience through features such as closed captioning and audio tracks available in multiple languages.

The partnership also will include worldwide access for film fans to other Academy events and programs exclusively on the Oscars YouTube channel. This will include the Governors Awards, the Oscars Nominations Announcement, the Oscars Nominees Luncheon, the Student Academy Awards, the Scientific and Technical Awards, Academy member and filmmaker interviews, film education programs, podcasts, and more.

In addition, through this holistic partnership, the Google Arts & Culture initiative will help provide digital access to select Academy Museum exhibitions and programs and help to digitize components of the Academy Collection—the largest film-related collection in the world, with more than 52 million items. It will be a true hub for film fans and will be accessible from around the world.

This deal brings to an end more than 50 years of tradition, with The Oscars being broadcast in the USA on ABC since 1976. It marks a significant transition, from a major mainstream tv network to the world's biggest streaming and video sharing platform.

“We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round Academy programming,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor. “The Academy is an international organization, and this partnership will allow us to expand access to the work of the Academy to the largest worldwide audience possible — which will be beneficial for our Academy members and the film community. This collaboration will leverage YouTube’s vast reach and infuse the Oscars and other Academy programming with innovative opportunities for engagement while honoring our legacy. We will be able to celebrate cinema, inspire new generations of filmmakers and provide access to our film history on an unprecedented global scale.”

“The Oscars are one of our essential cultural institutions, honoring excellence in storytelling and artistry,” said Neal Mohan, CEO, YouTube. “Partnering with the Academy to bring this celebration of art and entertainment to viewers all over the world will inspire a new generation of creativity and film lovers while staying true to the Oscars’ storied legacy.”

The Academy’s domestic partnership for the Oscars will continue with Disney ABC through the 100th Oscars in 2028, as will the international partnership for the Oscars with Disney’s Buena Vista International.

This is undoubtedly a brave move by the Academy, who see the benefits of partnering with a single, global platform, and the enormous, unrivalled audience which YouTube can provide. So how come LIV Golf received so much heat for choosing to launch their league on the platform? Quite clearly the backlash they received was more to do with the PGA TOUR looking to control the sport, rather than the merits of broadcasting Live on YouTube to a global audience.

Golf is actually flourishing in the YouTube space, with Bryson DeChambeau, Rick Shiels, Peter Finch, Good Good Golf, and many other YouTube golfers reaching audiences in the millions each month. So why not change the way people consume this sport and partner with a company which could undoubtedly afford to pay a far higher rights fee than the establishment media, and offer an infinitely larger audience. YouTube can also pretty much guarantee reaching the exact demographic of audience which golf needs to reach, through algorithms.

YouTube is free, and available on TV, Smartphone, Laptop, Mac, and Tablet, and is available everywhere on the planet. YouTube has the ability to offer coverage in multiple languages, and through its chat function, encourage engagement far higher than traditional tv can ever hope to provide. The DP World Tour has chosen to launch its own free streaming channel on Prime Video, Rakuten and Samsung TV plus, but has previously used YouTube to stream coverage of featured groups from the likes of the BMW PGA Championship and Genesis Scottish Open. The DP World Tour is primed to be able to offer coverage worldwide on YouTube, but it appears to be a long way off ever agreeing a partnership directly with the Google-owned platform.

It surely is only a matter of time before Google gets involved with sports broadcasting and streaming on a global scale. It has the infrastructure and it has the audience, and it also has the money to pay the rights fees which major sports organisations would want to receive. YouTube generated revenue of $31.5billion in 2023, with Google having revenue of $341.6billion in 2024. The PGA TOUR Media Rights generated more than $8billion from deals in the USA and around the world between 2018 and 2030.

Perhaps the folks at TPC Sawgrass and Wentworth will be watching closely to see the results of the Oscars partnership.

SHANK, by Matt Hooper