Twitter’s sports strategy could see the social media giant capitalizing on the crescent US sports betting market. The company has now seen year-over-year gains in NFL and college football engagement, including football sports betting, and has moved away from streaming full live events to a partnerships model focused on interactivity.
The significant uptick in engagement for football this season is expected to fuel the company’s monetization efforts, experts claim. Through September, the platform saw an average of 250,000 tweets per game (up 11% from 2020), while college football posted a 35% increase in unique authors tweeting, according to data provided to Front Office Sports by Twitter.
But a significant increase has also been reported in posts on football betting, which are up 22%. Meanwhile, fantasy football-related tweets are up 11%. As more states legalize sports wagering, David Herman, who manages U.S. Sports Partnerships at Twitter, said the company is now positioned to take advantage of this growth.
“Every single day, there’s more and more conversation and more and more happening in the sports betting world,” Herman said, according to the previously cited news source. “We think Twitter is a platform that plays well into gambling-related conversations: we’re live, we’re real-time, and that’s what betting is.”
According to the executive, betting and gambling “have long been a core component” of sports conversation in the platform. But now, as sports betting expands through more states and gains more mainstream appeal, “more sports betting brands can be advertisers on Twitter than in the past.” Moreover, leagues are willing to partner with betting operators, which results in wagering getting “more visibility and exposure” on a daily basis, says Herman.
Twitter already has ties with some major sportsbooks, including deals with DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM, which advertise on the social media brand. However, the company doesn’t have an official betting partner, a move that would allow users to place bets directly through the platform. This could be a prospective move for the social giant.
“We are consistently looking for new ways to enhance the user experience and at some point, as it relates to betting, that could be great,” Herman said, reports Front Office Sports. “There are a lot of complicated components for us. There are only certain states where it’s legal so far, so we are still evaluating the space as a whole.”
The boost in NFL and betting engagement comes as Twitter changed its approach to live sports: while it does stream some events, it has mostly moved away from full-game streaming to partnerships, which are seen as more conducive to its users. During its third-quarter earnings report, the company announced a 41% increase in advertising revenue ($1.14 billion) versus 2020.
Among its most notable streaming deals, the platform had the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football package”, and deals to stream live NHL and MLB games. But now the company has struck different deals, such as one with Fox Sports, by which during the first five minutes of the “Big Noon Saturday” game a fan poll allows viewers to select the camera angle during the window.
The focus on engagement and interactivity has resulted in NFL accounting for 51% of all sports videos viewed on the platform in August and September, the company revealed. It further led to monetizable daily active users jumping to 211 million in the most recent quarter, posting a 13% increase when compared to last year.
The platform is also expanding its offerings: Twitter Spaces, which features live audio chats and the possibility to turn them into podcasts, has seen wide adoption among sports fans, despite not necessarily being aimed at them. This product, first launched in May, is giving users new ways in which “to engage and discuss sports,” including betting.