YouTube TV just won its first-ever Technical Emmy award for its “Views” suite of features, which let users access sports highlights, key plays, player stats and game scores. At the 74th annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards last night, YouTube TV was declared the winner for the category “AI-ML Curation of Sports Highlights.”
“Thank you to the Academy for this recognition to Google. This is YouTube TV’s first ever Technology & Engineering Emmy Award, and we couldn’t be more proud of our team’s work on delivering Views for our members,” Kathryn Cochrane, YouTube TV’s group project manager, wrote in a company blog post.
The tech company also announced today that Key Plays reached a notable milestone—the feature was used in over 10 million watch sessions on the platform. Last year, viewers used key plays the most during the World Cup, regular season NFL games and Premier League matches.
The Key Plays view tracks important plays in a game. Users can tap on the plays to rewatch when it occurs in the game. This is helpful for users that missed a live game and want to catch up on key moments.
“Views came out of a team brainstorm about five years ago and launched about a year after YouTube TV,” Cochrane added. “A lot of our viewers are devoted sports fans, and we found that when they watch sports, they aren’t just looking at what’s on the big screen. They were also actively on their phones, finding more details such as stats for their fantasy football league, updates from other games, and more, all to enhance what they were already watching.”
When YouTube TV launched Views in 2018, it was only available for baseball, basketball, football and hockey. Soccer and golf were added later on. The suite of features was also initially limited to phones and tablets.
Today, the feature is available within the YouTube TV app across smart TVs and mobile devices.
In addition to Stats, Key Plays, and Scores View, there’s also Fantasy Football View, which is a mobile-only feature and lets users link their existing fantasy football account. That way, when a user is watching NFL games on YouTube TV, the feature allows them to see how their team is performing in real time.
Plus, there’s a “Jump to” function for users to quickly access a segment they want to view, which is especially handy for tennis fans and for users watching the Olympics.
Recently, YouTube TV launched a multiview feature for sports fans to watch four games at once. However, the feature is currently available to select users in the U.S.
