Twitter’s deals with MLB, NHL put focus on live video

By Sarah Frier

Twitter is not the first place people think to watch sports. It’s probably not the second or third. But the company is in a hurry to change that.

Best known as a site for posting 140-character messages, Twitter Monday announced another pair of deals with professional leagues to live-stream games and behind-thescenes content. At a time to be determined later, according to the official announcement, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League will bring out-of-network games to Twitter.

With this, the social media company has deals to live-stream games from three of the four major professional leagues. Earlier this year, Twitter agreed to pay $10 million a year for the rights to stream 10 NFL Thursday night games in 2016.

Last week Twitter announced a deal with the NBA to stream behind-thescenes videos, highlights and original shows.

The growing sports strategy is in an effort to change how people think about using Twitter, and how advertisers think of reaching those people. The number of people using the service has been stagnant, but live streams and original content may persuade more to log on and stick around.

It also puts Twitter in position to compete for advertisers’ video ad budgets, which would help offset revenue that’s growing more slowly than expected.