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Twitter set to announce deals to stream more live events

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By Jessica Goodfellow, Media Reporter

June 23, 2016 | 3 min read

Twitter is set to announce deals to stream more live events after seeing considerable interest from advertisers surrounding the NFL games it will air this season.

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So far Twitter has sold around 50 per cent of its NFL ad inventory and is said to be meeting with clients this week at the Cannes Lions festival to sell the remainder, Bloomberg reported.

Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, Nestle SA’s DiGornio pizza and Sony Pictures Entertainment are among the advertising partners signed up for the NFL deal, it was reported.

Twitter won the deal to stream Thursday night National Football League (NFL) games in April, meaning videos of the games will be streamed live for free without authentication to the over 800 million registered and non-registered users worldwide of the social network. The partnership also includes in-game highlights as well as pre-game Periscope posts from players and teams, giving fans an additional view of the pre and post-match buildup.

The games will be shown through Twitter’s livestreaming arm Periscope, which the social network acquired in 2015. Kayvon Beykpour, co-founder of Periscope, told an audience at Cannes Lions that “other announcements around premium content” outside of the NFL deal will be announced within weeks.

It comes as part of Twitter’s attempt to position itself as the go-to place for live events as social media giants battle it out to change sports and political broadcasting as we know it. While Twitter has always been a “second screen” for people to interact with when they are watching TV, further investments in live streaming move to position the platform as a “first screen”, Beykpour said.

Just this week Twitter extended the time limit for videos to 140-seconds on its own platform and on Vine as part of a shakeup by the social network to position itself as a go to place for influencers and encourage more video sharing among users.

The move is Twitter’s second attempt in as many months to pare back brevity on the platform following news that it will stop counting images and links in its 140-character limit.

Vine is also said to be exploring monetisation opportunities for creators in partnership with Twitter’s Amplify Open automated ad marketplace, which could theoretically involve selling video ads.

“Video is becoming increasingly central to the real-time conversations happening on Twitter,” said Twitter chief executive and co-founder Jack Dorsey, in a statement. ”We’re investing heavily in videos and creators. We want to be the best place for creators and influencers to build an audience and make it easier for creators to make money on Twitter, and soon, Vine.”

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