Twitter might be a social networking platform that is experiencing stagnation in the acquisition of new monthly active users but it hasn’t lost its greatest asset: Covering live events. If an event is happening in real time, Twitter is a great place to keep up with real time updates and the company knows that.
Sports are one of the various events that attract a lot of viewers when they are covered in real time and Twitter has shown interest in covering them. The latest move is by covering Wimbledon, one of the more popular tennis tournament in the sports event calendar.
How is Twitter covering this tournament? Well they have a dedicated livestream page which includes a web player with a branded “Live” tag and other information like the title of the stream and tabs that direct you to the Wimbledon and ESPN Twitter pages. There is also a scrollable list of tweets of people talking about the Wimbledon tournament.
Twitter actually gave Recode a statement about this development:
Twitter is increasingly a place where people can find live streaming video and that includes exciting sporting events like Wimbledon. This livestream is an extremely early and incomplete test experience, and we’ll be making lots of improvements before we launch it in its final form.
Speaking of ESPN, it seems Twitter is working with the network which is known for covering sporting events around the world and since they apparently bought exclusive rights to the Wimbledon tournament, you can bet it is streamed directly from them. Also, there is a tag at the bottom of the player that has a link to watch Wimbledon live on ESPN which proves this theory.
This is an exciting move by Twitter and it started by their move to cover NFL matches during the week. We can expect them in the future covering action in the NBA or the Premier League and this act alone might make people sign up for Twitter.
