Skip to main content

Twitter signed a new live video deal with the NFL that doesn’t include games

Twitter signed a new live video deal with the NFL that doesn’t include games

/

Watch people talk about football before you go somewhere else to watch football

Share this story

NFL: Minnesota Vikings at Green Bay Packers
Adam Wesley-USA TODAY Sports

Twitter is adding football back to its growing slate of live video offerings, but still won’t feature any games, according to the NFL. The league announced today that it has signed a multiyear deal with Twitter that’s focused on “uniquely packaged official NFL video and other types of content to fans around the world daily, year-round.”

The anchor of that deal is a live half-hour show produced by the NFL Network that will air five days a week during football season. Also included are the rights like highlight clips and live pregame shows before prime-time match-ups — similar to the ancillary content Twitter was able to broadcast during its last contract with the NFL.

Terms of the new deal between Twitter and the NFL were not disclosed. Amazon reportedly paid $50 million dollars for the rights to broadcast Thursday Night Football games, and that was apparently more than enough to outbid Twitter. (Twitter reportedly paid less than $10 million for the same broadcast rights in 2016.)

Anthony Noto, Twitter’s COO and CFO, recently told BuzzFeed News that he felt the company’s previous deal with the NFL “was instrumental” in proving that the social media service was serious about offering live video, even if it wasn’t able to keep the rights to game broadcasts. The new contract will help balance out Twitter’s recently announced plans to broadcast live video 24 hours a day, seven days a week.