Football is officially coming to Twitter—and, for company executives, this is a big deal.
Starting this fall, you’ll be able to watch Thursday Night Football live on Twitter alongside tweets from friends and fans. As my colleague Brian Barrett noted earlier this month, Twitter reportedly beat the likes of Amazon, Verizon, and Facebook to secure the digital rights to the games. That's surprising, given that Twitter doesn’t have a built-in video streaming infrastructure.
But the company has something crucial: a vast audience that uses its platform while watching the game. “We know that on Thursday night during the three-hour telecast of Thursday Night Football, we have millions of users looking at tweets about that game,” Twitter chief financial officer Antony Noto said during the company’s quarterly earnings call.
“Being able to bring the live stream game into the product with those live conversations is a complete solution,” he said. In other words, the live game alongside the live commentary should be all football fans need. He added that both those signed into Twitter and those who aren't would be able to see the game and its ads.
While it remains unclear how exactly Twitter will display the games (and whether sports fans will even want to watch it on Twitter), company execs seem hopeful that this will be one of many live streaming events the platform can use to demonstrate its value to the billions of people worldwide who seem to have no use for it. Twitter also plans to incorporate Periscope live streams before and after the game.
If this works, it may be a significant selling point. Plus it couldn't hurt to get other sports leagues involved. “As soon as we announced that deal, almost every league in the world contacted us, because they want to provide an even better experience for their fans,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey added during the call.
The message seems clear: football may be king in the US, but this is only the beginning for Twitter. Or so Twitter's execs can only hope.
