Are you ready for some (more) football? If you are a Twitter user, you’re going to be getting plenty during the next two NFL seasons.
Twitter and the NFL have signed a two-year agreement to bring in-game highlights and other content to the social network. It’s an extension of a deal first signed in 2013 and renewed last year, but this time there will be an acceleration. The NFL will post “significantly more official NFL content than in the past,” according to a statement released by the NFL and Twitter Monday. The NFL also has deals with Facebook and YouTube and for the first time this season will offer a free live stream of a regular-season game, on Yahoo.
On Twitter, the NFL ramps up its production from the pre-season through the Super Bowl in February. It will also publish breaking news and analysis, best plays, custom game recaps, infographics, behind-the-scenes content and archival video.
“Twitter users and brands cannot get enough NFL video and news, and they’ll now get more of it, and faster, than ever before,” Glenn Brown, head of Twitter content partnerships and its Amplify video ad sales program, said in the release. “Over the past two years, NFL content on Twitter has seen best-in-class user engagement rates, and the expanded partnership will bolster the fan experience on the platform.”
Since they are part of Twitter’s Amplify program, the NFL videos include pre-roll advertising with the entities sharing revenue from it. In the past, the NFL and Twitter had also shared ad sales duties. According to AdAge, Twitter will take the sales lead under the new agreement.
As noted today by Re/code, Twitter is almost certainly planning to use the extra content in its upcoming live-events product. “Project Lightning,” expected this fall, will focus on big events and gather real-time stories, photos, videos and conversation, and in the US, there’s nothing quite as big as NFL games.
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