Twitter is doubling down on sports.
The tech company today at its first-ever Digital Content NewFronts presentation announced more than a dozen new live streaming content deals, including several sports-related partnerships that continue to add to Twitter’s growing catalog.
Among the new deals includes one with the WNBA that will have the women’s pro hoops league stream weekly regular season games on Twitter (20 per season) over the next three years. Another is a new NFL live program produced by the league exclusively for Twitter and hosted by NFL Network on-air talent; there’s also additional on-demand highlights and pre-game video coming as part of an extended partnership. This follows Twitter losing out to Amazon in April for the rights to stream Thursday Night Football NFL games after Twitter did the same this past season.
There’s also a new show called “Stadium” that will air 24/7 sports content, including exclusive live collegiate sporting events, extensive highlights, classic games, and daily live studio programming, all weaved in with real-time tweets.
Other deals include a weekly 3-hour MLB show; a new live series hosted by The Players’ Tribune, the sports media company founded by Derek Jeter; and a 360-degree PGA Tour video stream that debuts this weekend.
Twitter is also partnering with a number of news organizations like Bloomberg — which will also air a 24/7 show on the platform — BuzzFeed and The Verge for separate live shows. It also announced separate deals today with Live Nation, IMG Fashion, and others.
Last quarter, Twitter streamed 800 hours of live content to 45 million unique viewers. Shares of Twitter were up 10 percent last week after the company beat expectations for both revenue and user growth for its first quarter of 2017. Once considered a rival social media network to Facebook, Twitter is now positioning itself as a live streaming news platform and a place to find out news first.
