Twitter has been involved in a lot of sports deals, including streaming a NFL game in 2016, streaming PGA, MLB and NHL contests since then, and offering alternate camera angles and sometimes analysis for NASCAR and NBA events. Their latest deal is with the Professional Fighters League, and while it’s not for the actual fights (those remain on ESPN’s platforms), there’s some interesting surrounding content here, including behind-the-scenes training content, live weigh-ins, and a curated event page. Here’s more on that from a release:
“Twitter and PFL are looking forward to advancing the sport by delivering a premium viewing experience to the 550 million MMA fans worldwide,” said PFL CEO, Peter Murray. “Our partnership with Twitter, the place where MMA conversation thrives, will bring fans closer to the action by providing premium real time content for our global fan base.”
Through the partnership, fans will have insider access to PFL fighter training content from the regular season bubble, live PFL fight night content, the pre-fight walk-out, real-time highlights, post-event PFL fighter press conference and The Round Up – which is a live feed where influencers will host a chat with fans during commercial breaks while they discuss what just happened in the fights and what they think is yet to come. PFL and Twitter will also launch a hashmoji for fans Tweeting about the event, with the hashtag #PFLMMA.
“We are pumped about our new collaboration with the Professional Fighters League,” said TJ Adeshola, Head of U.S. Sports Partnerships at Twitter. MMA fans on Twitter are very engaged, and they’re looking for creative new ways to experience fight content, directly within their timelines. The PFL delivers an innovative product for the MMA community on Twitter — and we look forward to bringing this epic partnership to life.”
The last few years have seen Twitter making some of these kinds of content deals that aren’t specifically about live games, and this is another addition to that. The training content and Round Up discussion feed seem particularly notable here. We’ll see how this deal works out.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.