Twitter and the National Football League have decided to take their relationship to a new level with a new agreement for a digital show that will stream live on Twitter for every weekday of the season.
The deal will see the NFL producing 30-minute shows featuring talents from the NFL Network, covering a range of breaking news, fantasy, and power rankings. This new agreement balances out investors’ disappointment over the NFL’s Thursday Night Football rights, which went to Amazon, and not Twitter.
The new deal
Included in the exclusive deal is live coverage of pre-game programming on both Twitter and Twitter’s Periscope service, so fans will get a better look at aspects of the games that they won’t have access otherwise.
Fans get to watch the live show, but they will also have access to video clips of game day to historical content.
Twitter and NFL have been partners since 2013, and during their previous Thursday Night Football stream, they have reached over 800 million registered and non-registered users across the globe. Live streaming was a way for Twitter to not only sell ads but to establish itself as the go-to platform for live sports and news.
Live programs
Twitter has been trying to get professional live contents hosted on the platform by making it easier for publishers to stream from external cameras, TV studios, drones, and even 360-degree videos, using Periscope.
Live streams are accessible from both the Periscope app and Twitter’s mobile and desktop apps.
According to Twitter’s blog, since the launch of the live video, it has delivered over 800 hours of premium content across more than 450 events, reaching 45 million unique viewers, and this is just the beginning.
Engaging fans
Anthony Noto, Twitter COO, said that the new collaboration would offer football fans around the world, even more, content from the NFL.
During the first quarter of 2017, Twitter has aired content from 400 events, and the company is expecting much more from the deal, which will give the fans, even more, ways to engage.
The average TV viewer who is also a skilled multi-tasker generally has to switch between smartphones, tablets, laptops and televisions several times in an hour, and it pays to have more ways to connect the mobile world to the home.
Twitter also has agreements with the Women’s National Basketball Association, BuzzFeed, Bloomberg News, The Verge, Live Nations, among others.
