Twitter is "happy with how the company’s NFL live streaming product performed this season" for its slate of "Thursday Night Football" games, but it "remains to be seen if the league will continue airing games on the social media platform," according to Taylor Soper of GEEKWIRE. The partnership began with the Week 2 Jets-Bills contest that received "just more than 2 million viewers," while viewership totals "increased to 2.2 million the following week" for Texans-Patriots. Average viewership for the eight remaining games "ranged from 2.6 million to 3.1 million." Twitter reported the average minute audience "hovered around 250,000 per game" throughout the season. Soper noted some advertisers were reportedly "underwhelmed by the audience numbers from Twitter’s stream." However, Twitter Head of Sports Content Partnerships Laura Froelich said that companies like Verizon and A-B InBev, which paid Twitter a reported $2-8M for NFL streaming packages, are "happy and 'extremely excited to be in on the innovation and how we are redefining how fans consume live sports.'" Froelich: "It’s really been a success all around and we are excited to build on that." Meanwhile, an NFL spokesperson said that the league is still "evaluating its options" on whether or not it will partner with Twitter next season (GEEKWIRE.com, 1/3).
