Twitter have signed a deal with Sky Sports that will see highlights from the 2016/2017 Premier League season shown in real time via the social network. The importance of live video streaming was a prominent point of discussion during Twitter’s second quarter earnings call for 2016.
The agreement means that users in the UK and Ireland will be able to watch short clips of key highlights, including goals, from each game shown on Sky throughout the season. These will be broadcast in real time via the Sky Sports Football Twitter account. The deal was reported via Sky News under the quote “Top-flight highlights will appear on the social network as it makes a big push to show more sports video.”
Twitter making inroads in live streaming sports tournaments
Throughout a significant proportion of the past year Twitter have focused a great deal of attention on improving video and live-streaming content, most notable during Wimbledon and Euro 2016. Throughout the Euros a similar style of video highlights content was utilised, while the network made use of behind-the-scenes coverage during Wimbledon. It’s wholly unsurprising that Twitter are eager to continue in a similar ilk with this season of the Premier League.
Tuesday 26th July saw the social network’s Q2 2016 Earnings Call. Alongside highlighting the impact of significant algorithmic changes to its Timeline and improvements to discovery through their Connect Tab, introduced in May, Twitter hailed live-streaming video in its shareholders letter…
“In Q2, we increased reach for creators and influencers’ videos by making it easier for people to explore more videos within Twitter… we see that people using the new experience now watch roughly four times more videos than those who don’t yet have it.”
Sky Sports Premier League Highlights on Twitter
Twitter has shown no sign of letting off in the battle against its slowing user base, and investing in providing coverage of prominent global events such as high profile sports tournaments is certainly yet another arrow in their quiver. Of the deal, Twitter’s Theo Luke had this to say:
“We can’t think of a better way to continue the momentous summer of sport on Twitter than live Premier League video clips… Sky Sports are incredibly innovative on Twitter so it seemed like a natural fit to work with them to bring fans the most sought after action in sport, in an instant.”
Photo source: By Peter Woodentop with additional in-house blog title overlay, [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
