SALT LAKE CITY, UT – MARCH 16: A view of the official game basketball during the first round of the 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament between the Arizona Wildcats and the North Dakota Fighting Sioux at Vivint Smart Home Arena on March 16, 2017 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Twitter is continuing to rack up the alliances and deals in a massive attempt to stand out from its social media rivals. With the NCAA Tournament fully underway in earnest, Twitter is streaming a live pregame show, “March Madness Now,” produced by the NCAA Tournament rightsholders, CBS and Turner Sports.

The show premiered a half-hour before Thursday’s 1st round action and will be live again today before the first games tip shortly after 12 p.m. ET. And the pregame show will livestream before each day’s action of the NCAA Tournament all the way through to the National Championship Game.

Noah Coslov of Sirius XM NBA Radio and former basketball player Jarvis Hayes are the co-hosts for the first week of the program. They’ll be joined by former UConn star Caron Butler during the Final Four in two weeks.

Twitter continues to make deals for live content. This week, it announced it will air a live weekly game from the National Lacrosse League spanning this and next season. You already know that it streamed Thursday Night Football last year and is streaming one NHL game a week. That NHL deal also allows Twitter to stream one MLB game a week during the regular season.

It also signed a contract to livestream eSports competitions and to top it off, Twitter also has a content deal to stream NBA-centric shows. And it’s streaming live golf as well.

Whether these deals are attracting new users, no one can say for now, but the fact that Twitter has been aggressive in making deals for live content shows that it cannot stay pat in this day and age.

Twitte hopes by providing exclusive content, it can not only keep its current users, but also bring in those who have been reluctant to join the service.

[CNET]

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.