The National Football League announced today that Twitter will stream 10 Thursday Night Football games, free for all users, during the 2016 regular season.
"The NFL and Twitter will provide free, live streaming video of Thursday Night Football without authentication to the over 800 million registered and non-registered users worldwide on the Twitter platform on mobile phones, tablets, PCs, and connected TVs," the league said.
Periscope broadcasts from players and teams are also planned. There is already "a massive amount of NFL-related conversation happening on Twitter during our games," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell noted.
The games will still be broadcast on regular TV by NBC, CBS, and NFL Network. But if you don't have a TV subscription, Twitter will be the place to watch and tweet about how exciting the games are.
Twitter reportedly was bidding against Verizon, Yahoo, and Amazon, while Facebook pulled itself out of consideration last week.
Financial details of the Twitter/NFL deal were not announced. Last year, Yahoo streamed a single NFL game, reportedly paying $17 million for the privilege. More than 15 million people watched.
"Twitter would probably broadcast the games as a part of the six-month-old Moments feature, which could package a live event alongside commentary, behind-the-scenes tweets, and other content," a Bloomberg story said today. Thursday night games draw fewer viewers than Sunday and Monday contests, making them a good place for the NFL to experiment with different distribution models.
"By the time the NFL’s biggest broadcast contracts expire in 2021, it will be prepared to sell a broad array of digital rights—and make more money," Bloomberg wrote.
Twitter reported a net loss of $90 million in its most recent quarter, and its number of monthly active users shrank. After this morning's announcement, Twitter's stock price rose a little more than two percent.
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