YouTube Teases New Features for 20th Anniversary as NFL Ties Grow

Jacob Feldman

Wed, April 23, 2025 at 1:00 PM UTC

It wasn't that long ago when YouTube seemed to draw more attention from sports' lawyers than sports marketers. In fact, it wasn't that long ago when YouTube didn't exist at all.

The Google-owned video-sharing platform celebrated the 20th anniversary of its first upload—" Me at the zoo "—Wednesday, teasing several new features as it continues its takeover of TV time.

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The 2004 Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" was reportedly an inciting event in the creation of YouTube, but for a while sports conversation maintained only a limited foothold on the site, due largely to copyright protections enforced by leagues and media networks.

England's Premier League, the French Tennis Federation and American broadcast company Viacom were among the entities that took YouTube to court in its early days. But over the ensuing years, properties changed their tune. After Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, leagues and distributors looking for new fans or additional ad dollars were drawn to the growing digital video hub. The NFL launched its YouTube channel in 2015.

That all now feels like ancient history.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has appeared at YouTube's annual Brandcast event each of the last two years, with the company paying roughly $2 billion a year for Sunday Ticket rights . YouTube is now also reported to be among the bidders for an exclusive NFL broadcast and international NFL Draft rights.

ESPN, the NBA and WWE have all invested in developing massive followings as well. Today, individual stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Bryson DeChambeau have set up their own mini-YouTube empires too.

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Last year, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said viewers consumed more than 35 billion hours of sports content across all devices on the platform over a 12-month period, a 45% leap from the previous year. In particular, he called out the growing number of sports fans watching YouTube on their TVs.

"It's not surprising because if you put yourself in the shoes of a consumer or a sports fan… that's a great screen to actually consume that sort of content," he told the Financial Times .

It's about to get even better, YouTube says. The company teased a new set of features coming to TV users "this summer." YouTube plans to introduce "easier navigation, playback and quality tweaks," while "streamlined access to comments, channel info and subscribing are heading to viewers' screens," it said in a news announcement. Another new feature will allow YouTube Premium members to watch videos at up to 4x speeds. And for those hoping to wind down rather than speed up, YouTube is spotlighting its sleep timer settings for the first time.

YouTube TV is also bringing upgrades to its multiview offering . Initially created with sports fans in mind, the customizable setting will soon include select non-sports streams as well.

According to newly released data from Nielsen, YouTube has expanded its lead among streamers in time watched on TV screens over the last year. In March 2025, YouTube controlled 12% of streaming time on TVs, up from 9.7% the previous March. Streaming as a category jumped from 38.5% of time in March 2024 to 43.8% this March. In February, YouTube grabbed the top spot on Nielsen's ranking of media distributors by TV usage time, surpassing Disney. The six top companies on that list (also including Fox, Netflix, Paramount and NBCUniversal) all have significant ties to the NFL.

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