Twitter has signed a two-year deal with the NFL that will see the social media site carry more league-branded content -- a further sign of the growing importance social media companies are placing on sports content. The deal, announced this morning, follows two one-year deals the NFL signed with Twitter in ‘13 and ‘14 around Twitter’s Amplify advertising platform. The new deal will see the NFL provide more than 100 30- and 60-second clips per week to Twitter (up from the 30-40 it had been providing over the past two years). Another change will see Twitter take the lead in selling the league’s content; the NFL and Twitter jointly sold it over the past two years. “You don’t have to necessarily follow the NFL to get exposed to the video,” said NFL VP/Media Strategy & Business Development Vishal Shah. “That’s what the Amplify program does. That’s also something the new discovery features will do. If you don’t follow the NFL, how would you ever get exposed to the good content that we are publishing? That’s what this collaboration actually intends to solve.” Like in the past two years, NFL content on Twitter will consist of in-game highlights and next-day recaps. Under the new deal, it also will include GIFs, infographics and NFL Network studio clips. According to a release distributed today, the NFL and Twitter “will continue to collaborate on new discovery features,” which sources said could include the Project Lightning feature that Twitter plans to launch this fall around big events. The deal could help Twitter, which has had problems growing its subscriber base. In Q2, Twitter’s average monthly users grew 15% to 316 million -- a growth rate that was lower than Q1 (18%) and last year’s Q4 (23%).
