American football league the NFL has bolstered its online video offering by agreeing a partnership with social media platform Facebook, according to the Wall Street Journal newspaper.
Short video clips on the social networking service will be immediately followed by adverts from telecommunications company Verizon Wireless, which will pay to promote them within NFL fans’ Facebook news feeds.
The Journal said that Facebook and the NFL would share the ad revenue, but the specific financial terms were not available. Facebook plans to bring in other partners in the future, with the NFL deal said to be the latest sign that the company is seeking to become more aggressive in the online video market.
“This is a small video sponsorship test, and we will be evaluating how people, publishers, and marketers respond to this kind of co-branded video content on Facebook,” a Facebook spokeswoman said.
The Facebook deal comes after the NFL’s partnership with the Amplify platform of social networking rival Twitter. Following a deal struck in September 2013, the NFL was among the early partners on Twitter Amplify, showing extra footage on certain game days, after games and during the off-season.
The NFL is said to command the most advertising money of any Twitter Amplify partner. Twitter and the NFL divide the revenue.