Twitter will be hoping that its $10 million deal with the NFL, which has a history of rendering huge benefits to everyone it has partnered with (like ESPN, Fox), will do the same for it, says TechCrunch. Twitter’s NFL deal is part of its overall strategy to make live events the centerpiece of its platform.
Good for Twitter despite inherent limitations
The Twitter/NFL deal does have some inherent limitations, like that the deal is just for one year. Also “the TNF broadcast is simulcast on CBS (or NBC) and the NFL Network and it can only sell a small percentage of the ad inventory,” notes TechCrunch.
Despite that, there is an excellent opportunity for Twitter to position itself for its own long-term transformative NFL moment. For this, the micro-blogging firm will have to make sure of a few things. The first is that its live stream should offer a compelling vision for how people will watch and participate in live events in an OTT world.
The BAMTech-powered HD broadcast has been a hit so far. It offers Twitter an opportunity to showcase why its platform offers a better viewing experience “because it is the same broadcast as the linear networks,” says TechCrunch.
Curated tweets alongside the action have been well-appreciated. Now the micro-blogging firm should enable fans to personalize their experience, monitor their fantasy teams and participate in meaningful ways. If successful, then fans, advertisers and content owners would be convinced that it should be the premier destination for live sports on any device, notes TechCrunch.
To help add more users, get more money
Twitter desperately needs to add users and also make them spend more time on its network. The first game attracted 2 million people, but it’s not known whether they are existing users, and if not, how Twitter will convert them into users. The company needs to translate the traffic into new users and increased usage. If it does, then the $1 million per-game rights fee it is paying could very well be an efficient marketing expense, says TechCrunch.
Also it would help Twitter if it demonstrates the relationship between activity on its platform and media consumption. Now that Twitter’s platform has games, it should have the data to understand the effect that tweets about a game from the people and brands have that might attract more advertisers to the platform.
According to TechCrunch, the NFL and Twitter “partnership is the latest grand experiment in the future of television.”