Reuters is extending the sports content it offers its Reuters Media Express customers after partnering with Red Bull Media House (RBMH) who will provide a curated selection of its best sports and lifestyle content.
Reuters offers raw content from 15 to 25 publisher contributors to a network that includes media outlets like Variety and USA Today.
Under the deal, Red Bull Media House will make a range of its extreme sports content available to the Reuters network, starting with content from three events a week of its own choice, and video, images and text from those events, like footage from its “30m dive off the ledge of Victoria Falls”:
Reuters, which delivers thousands of stories per day to over 3,000 publishers in broadcast, digital, and print, was already working with RBMH prior to the partnership and the popularity of the content paved the way for the international news agency to expand its sports offerings.
Reuters global head of sports and strategic projects, Robert Schack, described the deal as an “exciting agreement” for the agency and said the partnership was influenced by a number of factors including the already strong relationship it had with the RBMH editorial team who produce the content.
A key factor in the deal though was the growing demand for global sports coverage. Schack said many of Reuters customers have been “increasingly asking for more content on things like volleyball and snowboarding”.
He continued: “Over the last ten or so years the world has been flattening in a sense.”
“For instance when a Venezuelan footballer player signs for an Italian club the club then has fans in Venezuela. This is also evident with American fans increasingly watching European football and the growing interest in the MLS from Europe.”
This represents a problem for smaller publishers, especially given the plethora of nationalities competeing in the array sports which RBMH covers.
“We’re seeing more and more smaller publishers emerging who want to cover this content but they lack the resources to be in all these different locations around the world to cover it so this partnership gives them access to a very high quality package,” he added.