By Mike Shields 

ESPN is back on YouTube.

When the sports network's majority owner Walt Disney Co. signed a deal with YouTube in 2015 to include its content in the ad-free YouTube Red service, ESPN declined to participate and pulled its videos off of YouTube altogether.

But last weekend ESPN quietly streamed some live X Games footage on YouTube. And on Wednesday, short clips from ESPN's shows like "SportsCenter" and "First Take" started appearing on the free, ad-supported version of YouTube as well as YouTube Red.

"We were able to come to terms on a short form video agreement for YouTube and YouTube Red as part of our larger deal with The Walt Disney Company," said an ESPN spokeswoman.

Back when ESPN first pulled its content off of YouTube and declined to be part of Red, a Google spokeswoman said it was due to "rights and legal issues."

It isn't clear what has changed since that announcement was made, and the companies won't specify.

But the return of ESPN's content to the YouTube platform comes as Google works on signing up TV networks for its planned web TV service, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Disney has been part of those talks.

There are no pre-roll ads running on ESPN's free YouTube clips at the moment, but that will change soon with ESPN selling the ads directly. ESPN's Disney sibling ABC reached an agreement in 2015 to sell pre-roll ads on YouTube prior to clips from "Jimmy Kimmel Live." YouTube typically takes a 45% cut from ads that partners sell on its platform.

Write to Mike Shields at mike.shields@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 02, 2017 13:50 ET (18:50 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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