Twitter has outbid the likes of Amazon, Yahoo! Inc. and Verizon for the right to stream Thursday night NFL games online next season.
This fall Thursday Night Football will be streamed live @twitter so fans will see more of this. https://t.co/s6tbr9FjvY
-- Roger Goodell (@nflcommish) April 5, 2016
Facebook reportedly withdrew from the running days ago because the two sides couldn't agree on advertising.
More details via Bloomberg.com:
The deal gives Twitter a key piece of content to attract mainstream users in its quest to make its service a go-to place to react to and discuss live events. The NFL, aware that a growing number of households are comfortable streaming video over the Internet, is using the digital rights for Thursday night games to reach so-called cord-cutters, as former cable-TV subscribers are known.
The NFL said in a press release that Twitter wills stream 10 Thursday night regular-season games -- the same 10 games that CBS and NBC will broadcast -- and NFL Network will broadcast the other six games on the Thursday night schedule.
Last June, the NFL partnered with Yahoo! Inc. to stream the 2015 Week 7 Bills-Jaguars game that took place in London.
"The NFL has always been committed to being at the forefront of media innovation," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said at the time in a press release. "... [W]e are taking another important step in that direction as we continue to closely monitor the rapidly evolving digital media landscape."
Re/Code wrote at the time that "Industry executives familiar with the NFL's negotiations think Yahoo paid at least $20 million for the rights to stream the game; in return it has exclusive ad rights for the game. The league bid out the streaming rights and at least one other tech company made a very competitive offer."
On Tuesday, Re/Code's Peter Kafka writes that, "people familiar with the bidding said Twitter paid less than $10 million for entire 10 game package, while rival bids had been higher than $15 million."
