Twitter has secured a deal to stream live weekly matches from the US National Football League (NFL). Part of a 'tri-cast' strategy by the NFL, Twitter will stream live Thursday night matches that also appear on network TV (NBC and CBS) and cable TV (NFL Network). The Twitter streams will be available free, without authentication, worldwide. The partnership also includes in-game highlights as well as pre-game Periscope broadcasts from players and teams.
The NFL has already worked with Twitter since 2013 to promote the league and said the new deal will allow advertisers to further tap into the global audience for American football who follow matches live in Twitter conversations. The NFL agreed a similar partnership with Yahoo! last year to offer free, live streaming of a regular season NFL game. A third of streams came from outside the US.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Twitter outbid companies including Verizon, Yahoo, Facebook and Amazon for the streaming rights. It was not known what the company will pay for the rights to the ten matches. NBC and CBS each paid around USD 45 million per match for the broadcast rights, while Yahoo paid USD 17 million last year to stream a single match. Twitter COO Adam Bain said on Twitter that the deal includes rights for the company to some of the advertising inventory around the matches.
Source: http://www.telecompaper.com/news/twitter-wins-rights-to-live-stream-nfl-matches--1136872