I love following athletes on Twitter. At its best, you get (what feels like) intimate access to their lives, which is really fun if you’re a sports fan. Plus, some athletes are genuinely funny. At its worst, you get guys …

Sports-seeking cord cutters might have reason to rejoice, or at least reason to hope:  there’s a possibility YouTube will become a major player in the way sporting events, specifically, the NBA and the NHL, will be consumed by their fans.

After the success YouTube enjoyed from streaming of cricket from the Indian Premier League, Google’s online video service is looking to expand its reach by including the NBA and NHL in their sports stream lineup.

Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Hockey League (NHL) have teamed to offer each leagues games online via a bundled subscription.

Earlier this month, MLB.TV went on sale with its full-season package (March-October 2009) for $109.95, a $10 discount off the 2008 price. NHL will launch its standalone Race for the Cup service on February 16 for $79.95. The bundled subscription for the two leagues will be available February 16 for $139.95.

The NBA and the NHL received their turn as Yahoo Search Shortcuts, with the sports-loving Yahoos providing the leagues with the same features enjoyed by baseball and football fans for MLB and the NFL.

Online video as a social marketing mechanism has hit full stride with the pervasive popularity of video-sharing site, YouTube. Network television and various record labels have begun to embrace the platform as a new and untapped advertising resource. The presence of major sports entities, however, remains fragmented.

Nice job by the National Hockey league, inking a deal with YouTube to distribute clips of highlights, and opening up its own “web channel.”

The NBA has terminated its sale of game videos on Google Video, a partnership that would have been ten months old tomorrow. That would typically indicate either dissatisfaction with Google’s video store model, the NBA wanting more money, or something else entirely (like the YouTube deal).

Google Video used to feature official NBA videos, but the deal that made this possible seems to have run its course. Sports fans aren’t entirely out of luck, though, because the NHL will be providing content to fill the void.