TWTR Twitter Inc

By Yoree Koh and Joe Flint 

Twitter Inc. obtained the rights to stream 10 of the National Football League's Thursday night games, a bid to move from the periphery to the center of live events by leveraging the most popular U.S. sport.

The National Football League on Tuesday said it selected the social-blogging service to stream the games free globally across devices. Twitter will pay $10 million for the global rights, according to people familiar with the matter.

Twitter edged out bigger rivals including Verizon Communications Inc., Facebook Inc. and Amazon Inc., these people said, despite offering less money. The next highest bid exceeded $15 million, one of these people said. The deal was spearheaded by Anthony Noto, the former NFL finance chief who is now Twitter's CFO.

Twitter will stream 10 games broadcast by NBC and CBS, and simulcast on the NFL Network. The TV networks will still be able to stream the games on their own digital services. People on Twitter will be able to watch the games free, without needing a cable or network subscription.

Under the one-year agreement, Twitter will be able to show pregame video from players on Periscope, the live-streaming app it acquired last year, as well as highlight clips.

For Twitter, dubbed the second screen where people talk about what is unfolding on TV, the NFL deal marks its first attempt to host extended live content. Sports are a natural fit -- the barrage of tweets that flood people's timelines during games is often called "Sports Twitter."

Figuring out how to make a three-hour broadcast easy to find for fans but not a distraction to others, though, will be a tall task for a company that has struggled to make its service easier to use.

Twitter said games will stream on its website and in its apps, and will be visible inside of tweets. It isn't clear if the video, for example, will be parked at the top of a person's feed. Twitter said people who aren't logged in could potentially view the games embedded elsewhere where Twitter content is shown.

That is an important point for Twitter, which saw its user growth decline for the first time on a quarterly basis in the final three months of 2015. The company stresses its audience extends beyond the 320 million accounts that sign in at least once a month. When combined with people who see Twitter content away from the service, its audience grows to 800 million, the company has argued.

Shares of Twitter, down 66% over the past year, initially rose 2% after the news but closed 0.2% lower Tuesday.

Live streaming football games could also encourage NFL fans already on Twitter to tweet more often and surf through content, giving Twitter the chance to serve more ads, its primary source of revenue. As part of the deal, Twitter will receive 15 advertising slots to sell commercials during each game.

The NFL chose Twitter because of the service's ability to create a continuing conversation and its popularity with sports fans made it a better fit. The deal potentially opens the NFL up to a broader audience. More than 80% of Twitter's monthly active users engage with the service through a mobile device, and about 80% reside outside the U.S.

The pact is the latest example of how thinly the NFL slices its media rights to develop new revenue streams and take advantage of emerging content platforms. In addition to television deals with CBS, NBC, Fox and ESPN, it last year sold exclusive streaming rights to a single Sunday game to Yahoo Inc. for $20 million. The NFL already has an existing mobile deal with Verizon that will continue.

The NFL puts "a premium on flexibility," Brian Rolapp, the NFL's executive vice president of media, said in an interview. "We think that's worked for our benefit."

The Thursday games last season averaged more than 17 million viewers on CBS and the NFL Network, according to Nielsen. Sunday afternoon games typically average around 20 million viewers, while NBC's Sunday night games averaged 22.5 million viewers.

Twitter doesn't have streaming rights to the six Thursday night games carried exclusively on the league-owned NFL Network. Its $10 million deal is tiny compared to hundreds of millions of dollars shelled out for broadcast rights deals. NBC's deal for Thursday games on opening night and Thanksgiving as part of its Sunday night football package costs around $1 billion annually, for example.

Write to Yoree Koh at yoree.koh@wsj.com and Joe Flint at joe.flint@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 05, 2016 17:30 ET (21:30 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.