Twitter announces sports video deals in Asia

Twitter has announced a string of sports deals that will see it stream clips and highlights of sports including football, golf, Formula 1 and tennis in the Asia Pacific region.

A total of nine video sports collaborations were announced at the Sportel Asia conference in Singapore, including deals with broadcasters and operators like Fox Sports Asia, Eleven Sports and Astro Malaysia.

“Twitter is the best destination for sports video content because it’s an extension of what fans already expect from our platform – the live sports conversation unfolding on Twitter,” said Aneesh Madani, head of sport partnerships, Asia Pacific, Twitter.

Twitter announced agreements with: Asian Tour for golf clips and highlights; Astro Malaysia for clips from FIFA World Cup, EPL, F1, MotoGP, PGA and Asian Tour, Grand Slam Tennis, AFC CL and Cup; and with online sports service BallBall in Indonesia for European football highlights.

Other partnerships were with: Eleven Sports for Serie A and FA Cup football highlights in Singapore; Fox Sports Asia for clips from the Bundesliga, French Open, Wimbledon, US Open, AFC Champions League; and the International Table Tennis Federation for highlights of tournaments.

The final three agreements were with: NetTV for MotoGP clips in Indonesia; SportsFix TV for Malaysian League, Thai League and Serie A football highlights in Malaysia; and TV One for Liga Satu and Martial Arts leagues in Indonesia.

Twitter said that each of these partners will use in-stream sponsorships to monetise their video content, with premium sports clips on Twitter to include a short pre-roll ad from content sponsors.

Twitter already has deals in place with the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) to show clips and live matches respectively in Asia Pacific. It also has a deal with One Championship to broadcast live martial arts on the platform in this region.

“Asia Pacific is a growth engine for Twitter and we could not be prouder to extend our success with more in-stream premium video content from both headline events, and exciting underserved content, from sports leagues across the region,” said Madani.

News of the latest deals comes as competition for sports rights heats up in the online and social space. Earlier this year Facebook reportedly appointed Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton as it looks to secure live sports rights.

In the past week Facebook also announced it has struck a deal with Major League Baseball (MLB) to exclusively stream one live weekday afternoon game per week in the US on its Facebook Watch platform.