You still can’t catch hockey or basketball live on YouTube. But bull riding, the “most dangerous eight seconds in sports,” is coming to YouTube in real time.
Professional Bull Riders, a group which broke away from the rodeo establishment in 1992 to establish the sport in the mainstream, was an early adopter of YouTube. Its YouTube channel has racked up 46 million views in five years, and will now be one of the first sports to livestream its events.
According to the official YouTube blog post announcing the initiative, the livestreamed events scheduled so far are:
- January 6 from Madison Square Garden in New York City
- April 21 from Des Moines, Iowa
- April 28 from Uncasville, Connecticut
- May 5 from Billings, Montana
- May 18 from Pueblo, Colorado
Bull riding has been around for hundreds of years, and the sport has an estimated 100 million fans worldwide. Professional associations for the sport also exist in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand, and Australia.
Besides bull riding, fans can watch cricket, tennis, and bowling live on YouTube. Last year, YouTube was looking to livestream NHL and NBA games, but those talks never scored a goal. The NFL has allowed NBC to stream the 2012 Super Bowl online—but not on YouTube. While professional sports associations are interested in reaching YouTube viewers, they don’t want to jeopardize the lucrative TV rights deals they have with broadcast and cable networks.
Smaller sports like bull riding, by contrast, don’t have to worry about jeopardizing network deals. For them, YouTube can be the perfect way to find an audience.
Photo by Eric Ward
