Snapchat lands major deal to show highlights of Rio Olympics
Snapchat has scored a deal to host video highlights of the upcoming 2016 Summer Olympics.
It's a major coup for Snapchat as well as BuzzFeed, which will be curating the highlights into a channel for the app's Discover platform. There will also be Live Stories that incorporate Olympics highlights as well as behind-the-scenes video and user-provided content.
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BuzzFeed counts NBCUniversal, which owns the exclusive U.S. distribution rights to the upcoming Olympic games, among its investors.
Bloomberg first reported the deal.
The deal is huge for Snapchat and its efforts to become a major player in the media world. NBC has never before struck a deal for Olympics footage to appear on another company's platform.
"We are thrilled to be working closely with Snapchat on extending the stories and excitement of the Rio Olympics to their large, dynamic, and socially active audience,” said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics, in a press release. “And who better to partner with to produce content for that audience than Buzzfeed, perhaps the most creative producers in the social content space."
The companies involved will split any revenue made from advertising against the Olympic highlights. The content will only be available to U.S. Snapchat users.
Right now, Snapchat is the only platform to have the deal, but the content could still appear elsewhere.
NBC is handling the advertising sales for the deal.
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Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
