The Indian Premier League Hits YouTube For Six

Made Essential Reading on 17 March 2010 Richard Turrell



By streaming live Cricket under a deal with the Indian Premier League (IPL) YouTube claimed to have produced the first major sporting event to be streamed across the globe. Under the deal with the IPL, YouTube announced it would broadcast 60 matches over 45 days live through a dedicated channel at youtube.com/ipl.
As both a Digital Marketer and a Cricket fan this was exciting news. A company that has it’s origins in stored video content seriously entering the arena of live sports broadcasting whilst the rest of the digital world struggle to work out how to do battle with the TV.
And what a statement of intent that YouTube were willing to take a risk, would they be able to sustain the type of audiences that a national press and online campaign and a Friday afternoon may bring. Eagerly anticipating the result I logged onto the IPL YouTube channel to check out the quality…
“We are experiencing some technical difficulties. Please stay tuned”

Seriously, how can cricket break YouTube? What was exciting and bold quickly became a major disappointment as this message remained for 75 minutes.
A quick look at my Tweetdeck and Twitter was overloaded with negative comments:
  • Watching the live IPL streaming on youtube is utter cr*p…guys fix it #youtube #ipl
  • wtf?? IPL on. youtube down!
  • youtube streaming of ipl is terrible :( #youtube #youtube_ipl
  • Ipl 3 not streaming on youtube ?? Epic fail #ipl3

So what started out as a bold and brash declaration that YouTube had entered the world of online sports broadcasting has ended up with a lot of disappointed sports fans and serious doubts about whether YouTube can deliver live sports. The next few days of Google explanations will be very interesting.


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  • Lee

    It's a shame really Richard – like you say it was a bold initiative. I guess (a bit like Toyota) it will be interesting to see how they manage the PR and messaging with the next venture they try.

    Mind you the general comments about television coverage of the IPL is terrible. Basically a long advert which is occasionally interrupted by some cricket.

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