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Reports filtering in suggest that Twitter and Apple are in talks to stream the upcoming NFL games. When concluded, the deal will bring Twitter app to Apple TV, The New York Times reports. The plan is being reported as part of Twitter’s plan to expands its appeal using live streaming of sports. The NFL is not new to Apple TV paid subscribers, but the games are not currently being live streamed in the US.
Twitter has been working on a couple of sports livestreaming deals, and seems to be making a huge success of its effort. A couple of deals have already been inked by the microblogging company; and landing another one with Apple could help grow its user base. In July, the company inked a lucrative deal with the NBA, just a couple of months after beating Facebook and others to the NFL deal.
The social media giant teased us of what to expect from its NFL deal when it brought millions of people across the world live videos of the 2016 Wimbledon Tennis Tournament in England. The test-drive was a huge success, and underlines Twitter’s preparedness towards the NFL games.
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“Twitter is increasingly a place where people can find live streaming video, and that includes exciting sporting events like Wimbledon. This livestream is an extremely early and incomplete test experience, and we’ll be making lots of improvements before we launch it in its final form,” the company said at the time, per Recode.
Besides growing its dwindling user base, Twitter also hopes to use this proposed deal to announce itself as the network for live sporting events. That aside, the deal will also bolster the company’s revenue base, and strengthen its position as one of the leading social media companies in the world. However, the Verge reports that who sells the ads is a different ball game to the deal.
Speaking on the deal, Twitter’s chief financial officer and formerly for the N.F.L Anthony Noto said: “Having that live programming every night when sports are playing — with no paywall, no logging in and directly from the source — that’s key to us.”
Noto’s statement provides a clearer picture of what Twitter’s thinking is at the moment. The company clearly wants to provide livestreaming to a wider TV audience, which obviously is where the real deal is. Being able to bring livestreaming to TV is definitely bigger than providing it on app or mobile.
However, the world, including Twitter itself is eagerly awaiting the new NFL season and how the microblogging platform brings livestreaming to millions of people. September is around the corner, and until that time, the monkey won’t get off Twitter’s back just yet.
At the moment, Twitter is like a new bride, and every sports association is trying to use the platform to reach out to millions of viewers across the world. This view is echoed by the N.F.L commissioner, Roger Goodell, who said Twitter “is where live events unfold and is the right partner.”
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