Can Twitter Score with NFL Live Stream?

Whereas Twitter’s recent deal to broadcast全国足球联盟contests next season doesn’t represent a game changer for the beleaguered social media company, it could help it boost its stagnant user count.

“This is a very good first step to expand its user base,” says Paul Sweeney, North American director of research for Bloomberg Intelligence.推特第四季度每月有30005万活跃的用户，与前三个月不变。与第四季度Facebook相比，与16亿相比。

本月初，Twitter赢得了竞标，展示了十个星期四夜间游戏，也将在广播网络（NBC或CBS）和电缆的NFL网络上播出。据报道，Twitter将支付1000万美元并击败Facebook，Amazon，Yahoo和Verizon Communications，尽管他们下面竞标。Twitter将显示网络的国家广告，但可以销售自己的15个当地时间插槽的广告。

“这是推特的长期目标的一部分，为推动更加高质量的绩效内容，以吸引轻微的系绳用户和非用户，创造更深层次的参与者，”富国银行的股票级分析师Peter Stabler说。

That ad revenue obviously won’t move the needle for a company with revenue of $2.2 billion last year. Yesterday Twitter reported first-quarter revenue that missed the mark following lower-than-expected advertising spend. The stock has been volatile since yesterday afternoon and has plunged 15 percent today in light of lowered analyst expectations.

TheNFLoccupies a leading spot in the popular culture, with important games routinely topping the lists of the most highly rated television broadcasts. That gives Twitter a large audience to attract to its platform. “You can argue that there is no programming better than the NFL to entice a broader audience,” Sweeney says. Yahoo streamed an NFL game last season that drew more than 15.2 million users.

这可能足以使风险投入盈利。花旗集团分析师调整了一些数字，表明这是一个真正的可能性。周四夜间足球广播在2015年均得到1950万名观众。分析师认为，这位观众（1030万）的53％不是Twitter用户，基于GlobalWebindex的调查显示，47％的北美NFL粉丝是Twitter用户。

如果10%的1030万观众(1毫on) become Twitter users, the acquisition cost is $10 per user. “Given that Twitter’s U.S. ad revenue per monthly average user was more than $19 in 2015 and should grow further this year, this NFL deal may prove to be a profitable source of user acquisition in 2016,” Citi analysts write.

The fact that Twitter was able to gain live sports programing was a coup, analysts say. Sports are important for the service, with tweets proliferating during major athletic events. “It’s a power alley for them, because nearly all sports are consumed live,” Stabler says. “Live sports is a key piece of the ecosystem.” And Twitter has a heavy emphasis on what’s happening now.

Getting people to coalesce around an event creates plenty of potential for Twitter to monetize its content, says Jennifer Polk, research director at technology analysis and advisory firm Gartner. The NFL deal could be a stepping stone for Twitter to broadcast other big-time sporting events such as National Basketball Association games and theNational Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament, she says.

Of course, when broadcasting an event like an NFL game, the company has to avoid just serving as a fire hose for massive amounts of content. “Twitter needs to give you a way to filter out what you don’t care about, so you just get things like tweets from journalists covering it, or participants or owners,” Polk says. Some Twitter users have been turned off by receiving reams of tweets that don’t interest them.

推特has many opportunities to acquire live content other than sports as well. Entertainment and news, which already account for many of the service’s tweets, are examples. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to get digital rights for the Grammys or something like that,” Stabler says. “The NFL deal is a piece of a larger strategy.”

To be sure, not everyone is enthusiastic about Twitter’s venture. “We think it’s very unlikely this deal can be profitable,” Evan Wilson, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon, writes in a report. Twitter is joining the many companies ratcheting up their sales and marketing costs in an effort to chase new users, he says.