Twitter is "fast turning into a digital hangout for sports fans," as it has "now signed deals with four major sports leagues as well as the Pac-12 network," according to Yoree Koh of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Yesterday's deal with MLB and the NHL comes after it announced plans to double the amount of NBA content it will make available. The company earlier this year reached a one-year deal with the NFL to stream Thursday night games. Twitter "hopes to become more like the neighborhood bar -- the place where people don’t just congregate to talk about sports but to watch it." Whether these sports partnerships will "lure enough sports fans to help boost Twitter’s user growth is unclear" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/26). In San Jose, Queenie Wong noted the social media platform's recent deals "come as Twitter is trying to attract more users and highlight its place among social media companies." The tech firm "rolled out a new marketing campaign" yesterday to show that it is "more than just a place to connect with friends and family members." Twitter CMO Leslie Berland in a blog post wrote, "Twitter is where you go to see what’s happening everywhere in the world right now." But Wong asked, "Will live video be enough to revive the struggling social media company?" (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 7/26).
TIGHT BORDER: The GLOBE & MAIL's James Bradshaw writes Canadians will find their access to Twitter's streams "choked by local restrictions." Exclusive rights agreements with Canadian broadcasters, notably Rogers Communications, "mean NHL games and Blue Jays games won’t be streamed in Canada, though out-of-market baseball games will be allowed." Rogers President of Sportsnet & NHL Properties Scott Moore: "Canadian sports fans already have lots of ways to watch all this content." He added that he would "'never say never' to partnering with a social network to livestream games." But he said, "We in the broadcast and cable world pay large sums of money for rights fees, and so far we’ve not seen the partnership that would make sense for us to share those rights" (GLOBE & MAIL, 7/26).
