Twitter Has Signed a New Live Streaming Deal

It largely started with Twitter’s deal with the NFL for streaming live football games on Thursdays. Since that went incredibly well — more than two million Twitter users tuned in each week to watch the games — Twitter has decided to introduce more live content to the platform. Twitter will now be live streaming more than 1,500 hours of eSports, in addition to original content, on the service. This is a great move by Twitter, considering that the eSports market is expected to be worth about $1 billion dollars by 2019.

What Will the New ContentI include?

Twitter has partnered with ESL and DreamHack to allow Twitter users to stream more than 15 live events from ESL One, DreamHack, and Intel Extreme Masters (IEM). Additionally, ESL will contribute live original content in the form of a 30-minute show. This includes behind-the-scenes footage and highlights from live events. All of the content will be available worldwide. You can access all of the live content simply by going to Twitter’s website or by using the Twitter app. You can use the app on your Android phone or download the app on your Android TV.

Twitter began streaming IEM and ESL One event is in March of this year. All DreamHack events will be live-streamed starting in April. If these live-streamed events are popular on Twitter, Twitter is then likely to introduce more content on the service.

Good News for Twitter
Twitter’s success with live streaming sports content has allowed Twitter to receive more revenue from advertising. For these live-streamed sports events, Twitter has been running TV-like commercial breaks within content. Ads may also include highlights and sponsored recap clips. This is great news for Twitter, because it has largely struggled with increasing its advertising revenue, unlike other social networks such as Facebook and Instagram.

Further, Twitter’s new streaming deals may attract new users to Twitter. Twitter has had a lot of trouble attracting new users to the service over the years. However, Twitter is still one of the best social networks to use for live content or reacting to live content. It has been extremely popular for reacting to live TV shows such as The Bachelor, sharing information on current news events or natural disasters, and watching live events related to sports and politics. If this is any indication of Twitter’s future, it certainly seems like Twitter will have more success with live video.

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