Online video rights clearing house Rightster has brokered soccer highlights represented by MP & Silva to Google’s video website.

The deal creates a new channel, called Love Football, on YouTube, carrying goals and clips from matches in Serie A (Italy), Ligue 1 (France), MLS (U.S.), Serie A (Brazil) and England’s Championship, FA Cup and Capital One Cup.

Asked whether YouTube had put down money for the content, a spokesperson told paidContent:

“This is a traditional partnership similar to the Scottish League coming to YouTube, for example.

“We don’t comment on the specifics of our deals but this content will be ad-supported. YouTube provides the platform for our partners to distribute their content and have robust tools to help manage rights.”

YouTube has historically called itself merely a “platform” for other content owners. But the site has recently shown more interest in leveraging big-brand content like sports…

There is little transparency about the extent of any direct involvement by YouTube in bringing such content to its site, but it is likely trying to bring top-tier sports to its site through partners rather than signing direct deals.

Last month, the Scottish Premier League (SPL) opened a YouTube channel carrying match highlights, exploiting its own rights through the site. YouTube also carries Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket in some countries on behalf of its rightsholder.

Premier puzzle

Regardless of this configuration, the missing piece of the puzzle remains the jewel in football’s crown – the English Premier League, which has previously sued YouTube for allowing unauthorised clips.

Yahoo and ESPN currently hold online and mobile clips rights, respectively, until the end of the just-started 2012/13 season.

The 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.

How, or whether, YouTube might get the English Premier League remains an open question – but another deal with another partner looks more likely than a direct bid.

Asked, a YouTube spokesperson told paidContent:

“Regarding EPL, as always we’re open to discussions with all partners but we don’t have anything to announce at this point.”

Syndication to YouTube of EPL clips, then, will depend on the outcome of the league’s still-outstanding internet clips auction, which will not come until the autumn at least.

The man leading YouTube’s sports video strategy is Stephen Nuttall, the former commercial director of the EPL’s main live rights holder, BSkyB, who is nowadays YouTube’s senior director of sports for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

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.

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.

Plans call for the new league platform to be up at MLSnet.com by March 2010 with the 15 team sites to follow. The league says those sites currently get about 2 million monthly uniques. MLS President Mark Abbott told SBJ the costs would be in the “millions.” That includes developing a platform, hiring editorial, sales and marketing staffs, and a consulting deal with Michael Wolfson’s Rocket Fuel.

Update: MLBAM CEO Bob Bowman says the move was no unexpected: “We’ve said to them for the last two years we’re happy to let them bring it in house whenever they were ready to do it.” He hopes the relationship continues in some form, possibly live video delivery, but that remains to be seen.

It’s the first time every Champions’ League match has been streamed live online in the U.S. Bhavesh Patel, Fox Sport International’s VP for interactive media and a former director of global digital media for the NBA, told paidContent that the “jury is still out on whether advertising models work for sports content” and that online paid content is the only way Fox can make the most of its hard-won digital rights.

–Digital first: “This is a first for us to be able to give people full access to a (soccer) league in one location online,” says Patel, referring to the patchwork of agreements that see the popular English Premier League competition broadcast on TV and online by Fox, ESPN (NYSE: DIS) and Setanta. Many fans in the U.S. and elsewhere simply choose to watch live soccer games illegally via a host of P2P sites and foreign re-streamers — the EPL is embroiled in a lengthy class-action suit against YouTube — so more accurately, it’s the first time fans can watch a whole tournament in one place legally. The service is also available throughout soccer-mad Latin America.

– Ads don’t cut it:”It’s important to us to make sure we’re offering something of value, and we believe the best way to do that is make it free of advertising — so the best way to do that is to have a minimal charge.” Not only that, soccer isn’t the most ad-friendly sport: aside from a 15-minute half-time period, there are no natural breaks during play as with football or baseball, so advertisers would get scant opportunity to promote their brands anyway. Patel doesn’t rule out an ad-supported model for the sport one day, but adds: “I believe, following what MLB and NFL have learned from this marketplace, it’s difficult to earn back (costs) solely on advertising, particularly as these rights have to be paid for.”

– NBA experience: Patel negotiated free video deals between the NBA and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), YouTube, Joost and others, but he now says the NBA had more success from targeting consumers’ wallets than giving them content online for free: “We found that, by and large, when given the opportunity, the consumer will strangely be more willing to sign up when he has to pay for it than if he can just watch it for free.” For Patel, online sports broadcasters are left waiting for the “Hulu moment” that can support ad-funded content, but it’s nowhere in sight.

– Mobile app: Fox is also launching a Java-based mobile app for soccer fans at FoxSoccer.com with “near-live” Champions’ League highlights. It’s available, initially, on AT&T (NYSE: T) and Sprint (NYSE: S) only.