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2.3 Million Try Live Streaming NFL Thursday Night Football On Twitter

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In its first game streamed live to Twitter, NFL’s Thursday Night Football was a curiosity, and by the metrics, and experience, a success. Based on data provided by the National Football League, when including both the NFL Thursday Night Kickoff pregame show and the Jets/Bills game for a minimum of three seconds with that video being 100% in view, it reached 2.3 million via the social media platform. For the Thursday Night Football game alone, Twitter reached 2.1 million viewers. The average audience watching Thursday Night Football on Twitter properties was 243,000 with each viewer watching an average of 22 minutes of game action.

How does that stack up to television? According Nielsen, last night’s game was seen by an average of 15.4 million television viewers on CBS and NFL Network, and earned an average national household rating/share of 9.5/18, according to Nielsen Live + Same Day National ratings.

The football game on Twitter was also a home run. If that seems like mixed metaphors it’s that BAMTech, the spin-off company of MLB Advanced Media, that currently sees Major League Baseball’s 30 owners as majority owners along with the Walt Disney Co., NHL, and others, took care of the streaming services of the game to Twitter.

The game got largely positive reviews on Twitter, although some reported buffering issues of the CBS live feed to the social media platform.

While 2.3 million viewers of a live sporting event is a win for Twitter, in the overall, the number pales to their overall worldwide account base. Twitter is reported to be have 800 million accounts.

Still, it shows that Twitter’s continued entry into streaming live sports is more than just an experiment. As part of the deal with BAMTech, Twitter will show not only the Thursday Night Football games, but live MLB and NHL games, along with the Sports 120-produced “The Rally”, a SportsCenter-esq sports highlight program. There will also be live programming from the NBA, although no games.

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