Twitter will live stream its first college football games this week, and the action begins on opening night of the season Thursday at 8 p.m. ET when Utah State hosts Weber State.
Utah State is in the Mountain West Conference, which has a strategic partnership with Campus Insiders — the online streaming platform that last month announced it would stream live college games on Twitter.
“It’ll be trending on Twitter — is that the right word?” Utah State coach Matt Wells said Monday, smiling as he noted he got started with an account on the social site four years ago.
“That’s pretty cool. You’re the first college football game to be streamed. Hopefully, there’s no hiccups on that streaming and all that and it gets to be shown I guess nationwide, right?…Worldwide? That’ll be a neat deal.”
College football will appear on Twitter starting with the Utah State-Weber State game and also on Saturday when Mountain West Conference team Air Force hosts Abilene Christian. Neither game is being televised, but Twitter will broadcast the stream produced by the Mountain West Network on Campus Insiders to a worldwide audience.
Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson said earlier this month that the Mountain West would be the only NCAA Division I football conference that will be live streaming football games this fall.
Having such exposure on Twitter could have an effect on recruiting, as the games will be made available to a wide audience.
“We’re thrilled for the Mountain West to have the first-ever live football game on Twitter,” Thompson said in a statement Tuesday. “The MW is progressive in its vision and as part of our Campus Insiders partnership we are able to expand our digital footprint on Twitter’s outstanding platform.”
The significance of the first college football broadcast on Twitter was also felt by Weber State, a Football Championship Subdivision program that plays in the Big Sky Conference.
“Social media is the way many communicate, especially student-athletes, and streaming games on social media will be a major part of the future of broadcasting,” Weber State director of athletic communications Paul Grua said. “We’re really excited to showcase Weber State on Twitter and our student-athletes will be able to say they played in the first game ever on Twitter.”
