Twitter wins deal to stream NFL Thursday night games
The company will stream 10 Thursday night National Football League games during the 2016 season, a package that cost the service around $10 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Success with NFL games will also pave the way for more video deals that could include other professional sports, political content and eventually entertainment, Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto said.
The league is aware that a growing number of households are comfortable streaming video over the Internet, and this is an opportunity to appeal to “cord-cutters,” as former cable-TV subscribers are known.
Twitter bid for the package against a slate of heavyweights including Verizon Communications Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. The NFL is America’s most-watched sport by a wide margin; even Thursday night games, which draw smaller audiences than the contests on Sundays and Mondays, attracted about 17 million viewers last season.
“We did not take the highest bidder on the table,” said Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s executive vice president of media, of the Twitter deal.