from AdWeek,

As Yahoo figures out the future of its company, it's making a big bet on live sports.

The struggling tech and media giant announced a deal Thursday morning with the National Hockey League that allows Yahoo to stream four live games per week for free, meaning viewers don't need to be a pay-TV subscriber to watch. The partnership begins Friday and will run through next season as well.

Yahoo, which is already the league's official fantasy sponsor, will also offer condensed versions of games, "Best of the Day" and "Best of the Week" top plays and postgame highlights. Yahoo already has a partnership with NBC Sports for its national Wednesday and Sunday broadcasts, but that doesn't include livestreaming the game. "This partnership brings us one step closer to providing fans a live professional sporting event every day, on Yahoo," said Phil Lynch, vp, media partnerships at Yahoo.

But the most important aspect of the deal might be the fact that Yahoo will be able to sell its own advertising for the games, like it did when it streamed an NFL game last October.

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