Those rights are also held by STV, Perform Group and BBC Scotland. The YouTube deal is not a typical rights deal – YouTube is really just providing its platform for a channel managed by the SPL and populated with its own videos.

That mimics the arrangement under which YouTube, which is becoming increasingly interested in sports video rights, broadcasts Indian Premier League cricket matches around the world.

Could we see YouTube gain English Premier League soccer as well as Scottish?

In England, the Premier League in June awarded live multi-platform rights for the 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons to BSkyB and BT, whose combined winning bids of £3.018 billion doubled the previous outlay.

But the Premier League is still yet to unveil winning bids for three outstanding packages – internet clips (including mobile), “near-live” long-form for on-demand and “near-live” long-form for linear. An announcement is expected by October.

If Google goes for anything, it would be the internet clips, currently held by Yahoo (the existing mobile package is held by ESPN). Bidders are likely to include Perform Group and ESPN, which has lost lucrative live rights.

If it paid money to the league, Google could cure court action the league has taken against YouTube in the U.S. for allowing unauthorised YouTube clip uploads. But observers shouldn’t expect a bid…

Whilst the EPL has an array of suitors, the SPL’s YouTube deal is motivated by trying to secure a wider audience for its product, which some consider sub-standard and devalued by the loss of its number-two club, Rangers, to relegation following financial insolvency. A big motivator for the SPL is that its YouTube highlights can be viewed globally, not just at home in Scotland.

Whilst the SPL tells paidContent it never gives its matches away for free, it’s hard to imagine the EPL giving its away for anything other than maximum value  - maximising audience may prove a lesser concern.

The way the SPL structured the deal with YouTube allows Google to go on being a platform rather than a content owner. That may rule YouTube out of a full-on bid for English Premier League rights.

But it would, no doubt, love to get its hands on legal Premier League video in any way it can. YouTube now has a senior director of sports for Europe, Middle East and Africa – Stephen Nuttall, the former commercial director of the EPL’s main live rights holder, BSkyB.

Deal terms aren’t disclosed. Picklive investors included Passion Capital and several angels. The whole company, not just assets, was sold.

Picklive was founded as “Football 3s” by Tim Morgan, an obsessive Swansea City fan, when he left as CEO of multimedia production house Mint Digital in 2010.

A twist on fantasy football, it was designed to be played along with live soccer matches. Users form their digital team from on-field players, scoring points for their real match actions, as determined by Opta live match data feeds.

The execution was slick and the fanbase loyal. But Picklive was unable to gain greater traction – for instance, through relationships with sports broadcasters or bookmakers, which would have made logical partners.

“In-play” sports betting offered by the large bookmakers is going from strength to strength, advertised heavily during commercial breaks during televised sporting events. But few gamify the system using data and technology quite like Picklive has.

Apollo 13 encapsulates Picklive’s @thetimmorgan @ollyfrank @noamso. Although they never made it to the moon, they return to Earth as heroes

— Wil Stephens (@wilstephens) July 18, 2012

Sad about Picklive. I won 25 quid on the 2011 playoff semi-final and final despite falling asleep during the final.

— Dan Lowth (@DanLowth) July 19, 2012

Morgan told Picklive users on Wednesday:

“Three years ago, we invented live fantasy football as a form of second screen entertainment. Now we feel that we’ve taken the product as far as we can and that the new owners are better placed to develop Picklive in the future to fulfill its potential in other sports and to a wider audience.

“The new owners of Picklive have skills and competence in the gaming arena that mean we are confident that Picklive will go from strength to strength.”

Picklive team members are expected to embark on new projects. Morgan tells paidContent:

“There is unprecedented opportunity to build tech startups at the moment but there are also new models of early-stage funding emerging.

“It’s at this intersection I intend to operate next.”

Sports Millions looks like a good destination for Picklive. The three-year-old company currently operates several Premier League score predictor games, a spot-the-ball game and casino games.

The league on Wednesday awarded 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 live broadcast rights across all devices to BSkyB and BT. But near-live, on-demand and internet clips rights are due to be auctioned separately.

The outcome of the live rights auction is bad for ESPN, which built its entry to the UK on its previous rights win but whose games have effectively been pilfered by BT for its BT Vision hybrid DTT-IPTV service.

This second phase the league’s first technology-neutral auction, it also abolishes a package of UK mobile highlights rights, which ESPN has held for the last few years and exploits through its Goals mobile app. Goals will remain available at least for now.

Instead, highlights will be auctioned for internet generally regardless of mobile or other platform. Yahoo currently holds  non-mobile internet highlights rights.

But paidContent expects fast-growing online sports broadcast specialist Perform Group, which raised millions in a 2011 IPO, to show an interest in the new-look highlights package. If successful, it could license Premier League highlights to many other websites through its Omnisport player.

When asked, BSkyB, BT, ESPN and Perform all declined to say whether they are bidding for the near-live and internet highlights packages. Bids are confidential.

With its new live rights, BT said it will syndicate to other operators a channel it is creating to exploit its games, but best interactive experience will be reserved for those who take BT’s Infinity fibre broadband.

Sky will continue showing live games via Sky Sports not just to TVs but over mobiles, tablets and, increasingly, to internet-connected TVs.

The operator previously acquired the out-of-home Wi-Fi network service The Cloud to support mobile viewing and recently bought IPTV service Acetrax as a beachhead to internet TV. BSkyB is also preparing for this summer’s launch of Now TV, its new pay-TV brand for internet TVs, which is also expected to carry Sky Sports.

The Premier League told paidContent it would not disclose the timescale for the separate and outstanding auctions.

At £3.018 billion, the new winning live bids beat the previous ones by £1.254 billion.