All eyes were on YouTube and YouTube TV when the 2023 NFL season kicked off, and Oestlien was at the front of the line making sure the digital platform was at its best when it welcomed NFL Sunday Ticket. His team helped ship more than 130 features in just 200 days to make the experience possible, and it’s all part of the process to grow YouTube’s presence. One of the popular features that has drawn praise from sports fanatics is the multiview feature available on YouTube TV. The YouTube app on TVs also surpassed 1 billion hours watched every day. Looking forward, Oestlien is all in on generative AI and the technology YouTube is building to allow automatic dubbing of creator content into multiple languages.
What emerging industry trend are you most excited by? We are in the very early days of seeing the transformative impact creators will have on sports viewership. Our first season of NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube really highlighted how creators are uniquely able to connect our league partners to new and younger audiences. We are building a whole range of features to deepen this connection between fans, creators and their favorite sports teams and athletes. I can’t wait to see what new opportunities emerge from it.
Do you personally still have a traditional cable video package? I haven’t had a traditional cable TV subscription for close to 10 years. I’m lucky enough to be able to work on a product like YouTube TV, where I am a power user and very loyal customer. Many of the features we build, like multiview, come out of our own personal experience as sports fans and what we would like to see offered in a streaming service.
