As Wimbledon prepares to serve up its first on-court action of the year — as well as multiple helpings of the traditional strawberries and cream — Twitter, too, will be joining in the fun by offering tennis fans lots of live-streamed goodies from the event.
In the latest of a string of moves aimed at ramping up its live video output, the social media company has inked a deal with Wimbledon’s All England Club to live-stream behind-the-scenes footage from the world-famous tournament, as well as news, interviews, and match highlights. Sadly, though, there’ll be no live coverage of the matches, which start on July 3, so you’ll have to head elsewhere to watch the on-court antics of your favorite tennis stars.
Twitter’s content comes courtesy of The Wimbledon Channel, which broadcasts daily from 9 a.m. local time until the close of play for the entirety of the two-week event, and will be available to Twitter’s “logged-in and logged-out audience” (in other words, anyone with an internet connection) around the world.
Twitter COO Anthony Noto said the content will “provide fans on Twitter access to coverage from around the grounds from Wimbledon 2017, while following the conversation all on one screen.”
Meanwhile, Mick Desmond of The All England Club said his team is “pleased to be evolving the offering from last year’s initial live-stream test, which was the first premium live video collaboration on Twitter.”
Since that tie-up a year ago, Twitter has sought to build out its live-streaming offerings in its ongoing struggle to win new users and and boost ad revenue, competing with the likes of Facebook and Amazon for content. In May, for example, Twitter announced a stack of new live video offerings for its service via fresh partnerships with media outlets such as Bloomberg, BuzzFeed News, the PGA Tour, MLB, The Players’ Tribune, and Live Nation.
The “hundreds of hours” of original content will bring users exclusive, live, and original programming as the platform works toward its goal of becoming “the first place to see what’s happening.”
But the competition is tough. Social networking giant Facebook, for one, has been steadily building its roster of live video offerings, while Amazon recently snapped up Thursday Night Football rights for next season, nabbing the content from Twitter in a deal with the NFL thought to be worth around $50 million, $40 million more than Twitter paid for the same coverage last season.
