NFL News 2016: Twitter Wins Deal To Broadcast NFL's Thursday Night Games
Social media network giant Twitter will now be broadcasting Thursday night games of the National Football League (NFL).
In a report by the New York Times, Twitter will shedding out around $15 million to stream ten of the NFL's Thursday Night games for the season. The said games that will be streamed through the social networking site will also be the same games that will be broadcasted through CBS or NBC.
The Twitter broadcast will also include exclusive content, specifically the pre-game and post-game highlights. The report adds that the deal between Twitter and the NFL will be running for one year, to give the league the flexibility to find another broadcast partner, should they choose to do so in the future.
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In another report by BBC.com, Twitter won the bidding war against companies such as Amazon, Yahoo!, and Verizon. Facebook was initially in the mix, but dropped out of the bidding.
According to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the league has found its "right partner" that will hold its live events.
"There is a massive amount of NFL-related conversation happening on Twitter during our games," he said. Goodell adds that another advantage of the new partnership with Twitter would be to provide additional reach for brands that advertise with their broadcast partners.
For Twitter's Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, the new deal would only enhance the experience of NFL fans on the said social media site, since they can now catch live Thursday night games.
"People watch NFL games with Twitter today. Now they'll be able to watch right on Twitter Thursday nights," Dorsey said.
In another report by Deadline Hollywood, Twitter will only have two minutes of advertising inventory for local spots, and will not be replacing the national spots held by CBS and NBC, whose broadcast rights were split within each other last February.
"The industry will be eager to see whether the addition of a digital option will add to the NFL's viewers, or mostly divide existing ones," an excerpt of the report reads.
