Dive Brief:
- Twitter has expanded its live streaming sports lineup by signing deals with Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League for a limited number of games this fall, the company announced in a press release.
- Under the terms of the deal, Twitter will stream one game a week each from the MLB and the NHL, although it won’t be streaming games that are available nationally on TV.
- The deal also includes the rights to an exclusive, nightly multi-sports highlights show called “The Rally” that will be produced by digital sports network 120 Sports.
Dive Insight:
Another day, another live streaming deal for Twitter.
The deals come at a time when Twitter has been trying to reinvigorate its brand to attract new users and ad revenue. Twitter has been rolling out new features and ad products to bolster its standing with users, advertisers and investors, but its biggest bet has been on live streaming video.
Over the last few months, Twitter has been building out its lineup of free live video content to compete with traditional network TV. Twitter's first major move was to sign up for the exclusive rights to 10 NFL Thursday Night Football games this fall. But when Twitter inked its first major live streaming deal with the NFL, few would have guessed how quickly the platform would beef up its live video lineup. Twitter now already boasts the aforementioned Thursday Night Football games, live streams of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions, MLB and NHL games, and two original programming shows about the NBA.
It's still too early to tell if the big bets on live streaming video will pay off. But in what should be seen as an encouraging sign, eMarketer's latest forecast predicts that Twitter's user base is expected to increase 11% this year.
