Bol Bol (Photo by Josh Lefkowitz/Getty Images)
Twitter, Gatorade and Intersport announced on Wednesday that #TheDebut, a first-of-its-kind livestream broadcast on Twitter, will feature eight high school basketball games, including some of the top players in the country.
The live coverage begins on Friday from South Carolina with Shannon Forest Christian vs. Spartanburg Day School, which is led by a buzzworthy star player in Zion Williamson who is scheduled to announce his college decision the following day. Another game on Feb. 23 features AZ Compass and Findlay Prep, which has top 7-foot-2 center Bol Bol as the main attraction.
Games will be available globally to Twitter’s logged-in and logged-out audience, and can be found at live.twitter.com/TheDebut or via @Gatorade on computers, tablets and mobile devices. The live stream will also be accompanied by a Twitter timeline, featuring related real-time conversation.
Former NBA players Baron Davis and Nate Robinson along with NBA 2K TV host Rachel Demita will serve as the broadcast team, providing live commentary on-site from the eight games.
“Sports represent a significant portion of livestreams on Twitter, but high school basketball is a massive, untapped opportunity for us, given how much [unpaid] engagement we are seeing in this category,” Andrew Barge, head of sports broadcast partnerships for Twitter, told Digiday. “I believe ‘#TheDebut’ will resonate with [all the] basketball fans on Twitter, although it’s a high school-specific program.”
This partnership comes after recent Twitter brand/advertiser sponsored live video collaborations incluidng Nike’s #Breaking2.
Intersport leads the partnership on school recommendations, talent, and directs the stream.
“This is a unique offering and is in line with our commitment to finding interactive engagement with consumers in an unexpected way,” Kenny Mitchell, head of consumer engagement for Gatorade, told Digiday. “Sports in general — and basketball in particular — is well-connected to the Twitter platform, no matter whether you look at college, professional or high school games. So we thought, ‘Why not give livestreaming basketball series a try?’”
