Foxborough, MA – November 24, 2015 – Gillette Stadium: Rob Gronkowski (87) of the New England Patriots during a regular season Monday Night Football game
(Photo by Allen Kee / ESPN Images)
On its Q4 earnings call Thursday and in a recent letter to shareholders, Twitter highlighted its live streaming deal with the NFL, calling it the “major highlight of the fourth quarter.” According to the company’s letter, about 55 percent of its audience for the games was under the age of 25 and 25 percent were outside the United States.
When asked about revenue and potentially renewing the NFL deal, Anthony Noto, Chief Financial Officer, said on the call that following the 10-game Thursday Night Football package, Twitter would look to “partner with them in a bigger way.” An NFL spokesperson told SportTechie last month that it was still vetting options for the 2017-18 season in terms of a live streaming partner.
“On the NFL, it really exceeded our expectations on both revenue and profitability for both us and for our partners,” Noto said. “It was part of a much broader strategy that allowed us to build on the back of that, so there’s a direct value to the NFL and there’s an indirect value to the NFL.”
At the midway point in the live streaming deal, Noto commented that Twitter was “very pleased” with how it was performing while after the season, Laura Froelich — Head of Sports Partnerships — told Geekwire that it went “incredibly well.”
Noto also said on today’s earnings call that of the 600 hours of live video programmed content in Q4, 50 percent of those were from sports.
Twitter also inked a partnership with the PGA TOUR in January to broadcast first and second round coverage of tournaments throughout the remainder of the 2016-17 season while it started streaming NHL games a week ago.
Yet, despite the positive sports momentum on the platform, Twitter reported just two million new users in the last quarter to raise the current number of average monthly active users to 319 million. Additionally, the decade-old social platform reported less-than-projected revenue of $717 million in Q4, just one percent year-over-year growth.
