Cris Carter to do live commentary on Thursday Night Football for Twitter via Periscope

After Cris Carter’s ESPN contract was not renewed, he became a free agent. The former Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver has found a new gig and it’s quite the non-traditional role. Since he retired, Carter has been an analyst on Inside the NFL and Sunday NFL Countdown. After last season, ESPN decided to overhaul Sunday NFL Countdown and it left only Chris Berman as the only holdover. Starting next week for the New York Jets-Buffalo game, Carter will provide live commentary for Thursday Night Football on Twitter via Periscope.

According to the Sporting News, Carter will be live streamed on Periscope about an hour and a half before each TNF game, then appear at halftime and then after the game. Twitter will stream 10 Thursday Night Football games, the ones aired on CBS and NBC, but the plans for Carter will be for him to do this for every TNF game, even the ones that won’t be streamed on Twitter and aired exclusively on NFL Network.

Twitter is presenting an all-out front for Thursday Night Football as it will stream games to both users and non-users. It won the contract to stream the games over Facebook and it has been using live sports to potentially attract a new audience as well as become a first screen rather than a second screen compliment.

This isn’t the first time that Twitter is using a live stream to analyze a sporting event. Andy Roddick has been talking about the U.S. Open live on Periscope for Twitter. And if this becomes a popular stream, expect more of this down the line.

[Sporting News]