Twitter blow to Sky with move for US PGA Championships streaming rights
Twitter is set to twist the knife into Sky following its embarrassing loss of exclusive broadcast rights for next month’s US PGA Championship by seeking to pick up some of the pieces for itself, namely digital screening rights.
Twitter deals blow to Sky with move for US PGA Championships streaming rights
The social media service is reportedly in talks with the golfing body to obtain streaming rights in the UK for the 2017 tournament, complementing its stated strategy of harnessing sports rights to grow its user base and attain profitability.
In this way Twitter has already live streamed 31 smaller PGA tournaments but never one of the big ticket ‘majors’ such as the Championship.
Up till now Sky has been the undisputed king of the sport in the UK, launching a dedicated golf channel only last week, having obtained broadcast rights for all four golf majors last year in addition to live coverage of both the PGA and European tournaments.
A deep fragmentation of the broadcast landscape now looks to be on the cards however with reports in the Financial Times suggesting that a British ‘free-to-air’ broadcaster is hoping to acquire television rights for next month’s competition.
In recent weeks Twitter has partnered with the All England Lawn Tennis Club to live stream its Wimbledon channel although it also lost NFL Live streaming rights to Amazon.