Groupon says it will be working with various teams from the league to offer more deals on tickets, official merchandise and “rare experiences, such as up-close encounters with MLB ballparks.”

“What does this insider status look like?” asks Groupon in a blog post. “Past deals have included exclusive access to World Series ticket packages, batting practice with an MLB team, the chance to throw out the first pitch before a game, an official Jumbotron welcome to the stadium and a tour of the locker room where your favorite players starch their lucky socks.”

The company says users can expect similar deals to these, and other things on GrouponLive, Groupon’s events platform. Such offerings will also be available via the Groupon mobile app.

Users can expect all of this to begin with the upcoming 2013 baseball season. While it is a multi-year partnership, it’s unclear just how many years it is for.

“Groupon is proud to partner with MLB Advanced Media and work with the teams to create new, unique opportunities for our customers to appreciate America’s favorite pastime,” said GrouponLive General Manager, Greg Rudin. “In addition to great deals on tickets, fans will have a chance to enjoy unforgettable ballpark experiences.”

“Groupon offers a cutting-edge marketing channel with an extensive customer base to drive additional ticketing opportunities and incremental revenue for our teams,” said Noah Garden, EVP, Revenue, MLBAM.

Groupon, meanwhile, is facing potential changes in leadership.

Part of the agreement involves TiVo and Verizon “exploring, among other things, future distribution of Internet video services developed through Verizon’s joint venture with Redbox.” This would include making content distributed via that service part of the content accessible via TiVo’s DVR products. More on the Verizon/Redbox offering here.

Verizon’s payments to TiVo will consist of a $100 million initial cash payment, and then recurring quarterly payments adding up to an additional $150.4 million through July of 2018.

TiVo says that if the companies decide to pursue certain commercial endeavors before December 21 of this year, up to $29.4 million of the payments made by Verizon would be subject to a credit of an equal amount.

Verizon will also pay monthly license fees through July 2018 for each Verizon DVR subscriber “in excess of certain pre-determined levels.”

“We are pleased to reach an agreement with Verizon which underscores the significant value our distribution partners derive from TiVo’s technological innovations and our shareholders derive from our investments in protecting TiVo’s intellectual property,” said TiVo President and CEO Tom Rogers.

“We also look forward to working together on a variety of future opportunities as we continue to expand the content choices available to TiVo subscribers,” he added. “As with prior settlements, we also benefit by being able to operate our business under license from Verizon and by avoiding future legal expenses that we would have incurred during and after trial. Furthermore, we believe this settlement positions us well with respect to future enforceability of our patents.”

Verizon and TiVo have agreed to dismiss all pending litigation.

“Revstream’s platform enables Twitter to accelerate our billing cycle and improve our global revenue recognition process,” said Shanice Ma, Director of Revenue at Twitter. “With Revstream, our process is improving in both efficiency and accuracy.”

That efficiency is going to be important as the company continues to improve on its monetization strategy.

“An explosive global business like Twitter presents sophisticated challenges for Finance teams in both revenue and billing management,” said Mark Aubin, Revstream’s Chief Product Architect. “Twitter’s volume, frequency and variation of ad products require very robust billing and revenue management functionality. We designed the Revstream Suite to handle the unique operational challenges faced by a wide variety of companies with ad-based revenue models.”

According to Revstream’s site, Facebook also uses its platform.

Shervin Mirhashemi, COO of AEG Global Partnerships, said he expects the deal to open up a new avenue for fans to get their hands on some live event deals that might not otherwise be within reach. “Using the LivingSocial platform offers AEG a new channel to sell unique packages and tickets to highly passionate audiences across the country,” Mirhashemi said.

AEG is involved in a number of live events, ranging from Elton John concerts to L.A. Lakers and L.A. Kings games, so there’s likely to be something presented by AEG you’ll find that fits your fancy.

At any rate, this is a great chance for die-hard fans who’ve never had the fortune to get close enough to smell the sweat dripping off of their favorite rockstars and athletes. Alternately, if your used to sitting in the nosebleed seats at the Lakers games, this would be a great chance for you to move down to the lower level.

“This partnership is different than any other because it is really focused on providing exclusive experiences to the best shows in the best venues nationwide, including LivingSocial-created events, ” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, Co-Founder and CEO of LivingSocial.

The select AEG events will be available as part of LivingSocial Live Events, a service that will be launching in the near future.

The Young Hollywood Network (YHN) is one of the new partners, and it launched its channel last month. The channel, of course, focuses on the entertainment industry and produces a new show 6 days a week.

“We wanna really create appointment-viewing television,” said RJ Williams, the CEO and Founder of YHN.

Williams told us that YHN had been a partner with YouTube for 3 years, but, prior to its recent launch, it had not produced content exclusive to YouTube. However, when talk of YouTube’s efforts began to spread, YHN began to talk to the video giant and explain what type of network they could create.

Since the channel’s launch last month, Williams said subscribers have greatly increased and that their engagement level is much higher as well. As he explained, viewers would typically stop watching after a minute or so, but now they’re watching for longer periods of time. He believes YouTube is quickly becoming a place for “destination viewing.”

“YouTube’s changed… because it’s exclusive content you can’t find anywhere else,” said Williams.

“If you want to see a specific show or a specific celebrity, you’re gonna go to YouTube,” he added.

Jim Louderback, the CEO of Revision3, spoke with us not long after YouTube made its announcement and told us that he believed the new channels would raise the bar of professionalism on the video platform. In spite of this benefit, he did point out that these channels could have some challenges with promoting themselves since there are so many veteran channels to compete against.

Williams admitted that it would be challenging but said that all the partners involved with YouTube’s initiative would need to help each other succeed.

“For this to work, everybody in the ecosystem needs to feed off one another, and they need to promote each other,” he said.

He went on to say that the players that come up with innovative ways to promote the others would be the ones who would survive.

Can the new channels compete with tried and true ones? What do you think?

Here’s what this entails:

• ABC News will become the premier news provider on Yahoo News
• ABC’s GoodMorningAmerica.com launches on Yahoo today at GMA.yahoo.com
• New original web series featuring ABC News anchors. This will start with programs called “Newsmakers,” “Around the World with Christiane Amanpour,” and “This Could Be Big.” Others will follow in the coming months.
• The editorial teams of both media organizations will work together to develop news content.
• The sales teams will also work together on advertising solutions.
• Both will retain editorial control of their own properties.

“Yahoo! is committed to building the richest set of premium and personalized content experiences for our users. Our deep collaboration with ABC News further strengthens Yahoo! as the No. 1 online news source, greatly enhancing our already robust news content,” said Ross Levinsohn, executive vice president of Americas at Yahoo. “ABC News and Ben Sherwood’s vision is completely symbiotic with ours; together we can create highly engaging experiences for more than 100 million users a month that will set the standard for the industry.”

“This relationship will give ABC News an unrivaled ability to reach across the Web, combining Yahoo!’s vast distribution and cutting-edge technology with our award-winning journalism.  For years, we’ve proudly proclaimed that more Americans get their news from ABC News than any other source,” said ABC News President Ben Sherwood.  “Going forward, we will greatly expand this leadership by building a connection with a whole new online audience.”

Clearly Yahoo isn’t letting that lack of a CEO slow them down.

“MLB.com Full Count lets fans follow live Major League Baseball action throughout the remainder of the regular season featuring live look-ins to key plays and pivotal moments, and in-progress video highlights from around the league, as well as statistical data and historical footage relevant to the day’s action,” a spokesperson for Yahoo tells WebProNews.

It’s free and is immediately available here.

Next year, the product will cover the entire regular season, starting with the first full day of games. It will also later expand to be available on mobile and tablet devices.

MLB.com is also providing Yahoo with access to daily highlights from every game.

“This product continues our seven-year relationship with MLB.com and builds on our leadership as the No. 1 general sports site online,” said Ken Fuchs, vice president, Yahoo Media Network. “MLB.com is one of our most innovative partners, and they have delivered a product that will provide avid baseball fans a fast-paced daily destination to follow their teams and the biggest games, players and moments as well as unique video and integrated solutions for our advertising partners.”
 
“We have built Full Count to deliver MLB highlights to fans as they happen in a user-friendly, media-rich environment,” said Kenny Gersh, senior vice president, business development, MLB.com. “We are pleased to continue to bring MLB content to Yahoo!’s massive audience.”

Yahoo sports, by the way, is credited as the top sports property online with over 48 million monthly users.

Local advertisers will have access to Yahoo inventory and targeting capabilities. 

“The agreement further brings together Gannett’s powerful local media organization brands, sales solutions, and leading digital platforms with Yahoo’s market leading reach and display advertising leadership,” a spokesperson tells WebProNews.

“We’re focused on delivering strong results for our customers through unique marketing ideas and solutions,” said Dave Lougee, president of Gannett Broadcasting. “Gannett’s local advertising partnership with Yahoo! provides dynamic targeting based on geography, demographics, behaviors and interests, which enhances our ability to drive those results. Based on the success we have had to date in nine of our markets, we are expanding the Gannett Broadcasting and Yahoo! partnership to all 19 of our markets by early next year.”

“Yahoo! is committed to making sure local businesses reach high-quality target audiences,” said Lem Lloyd, Yahoo!’s vice president of North America channel sales. “By expanding our relationship with Gannett, we’re reinforcing our commitment to extend Yahoo!’s local offering, providing advertisers access to the technology and scale they need to effectively reach these audiences.”

In addition to nine of Gannett’s Broadcasting Division markets, all 81 of Gannett’s local publishing organizations offer Yahoo advertising. The publisher says its local media organizations typically reach 80% or more of the total digital audience in each of the markets that offer the Yahoo advertising partnership.

Urbanspoon tells WebProNews, “”We’re excited to be working with Zagat – the pinnacle of high end restaurant reviews. Providing diners with easy access to Zagat reviews directly on their smartphones will make it even easier to select the best dining options.”   

“Our goal at Urbanspoon is to give users the most accurate, in-depth look at local restaurants to help inform their decision about what new spots to try and which favorites to keep on their go-to list,” said Urbanspoon GM Kara Nortman. “Bringing in content from Zagat, arguably the most famous name in restaurant reviews, adds another layer of trusted insight to help people find the best restaurants in their cities.”

Zagat’s ratings and recommendations for restaurants will appear alongside Urbanspoon’s aggregated content. Users will be able to access the reviews along with general business info, photos and related blog posts.

That’s not all though. Google has expanded its NFL-related search results to include even more information, thanks to a partnership with ESPN, which already expanded upon its MLB results.

In a message posted to Google’s Inside Search Blog, software engineer Itay Maman writes:

Just as the NFL season kicks off and you have your fantasy football league ready to go, you’ll be able to get useful information such as the latest scores, schedules, standings and stats for football-related queries in your search results. Last week, we started showing MLB results in partnership with ESPN and we’re now expanding sports live results to include the NFL. In addition to information on the football league, teams and players, you’ll also have direct links to previews, live streams, updates and game recaps. We hope to add more and more sports information on google.com, so stay tuned.

The first game of the season kicks off at 8:30 PM (Eastern) on Thursday, September 8 on NBC. The New Orleans Saints head to Lambeau to face the Green Bay Packers.