Short messaging service Twitter and the US National Football League have agreed on a longer content and advertising deal. It goes far beyond the contracts the two sides have shared so far. Twitter and the NFL on Monday announced a partnership accord, which they said would take previous cooperation contracts in 2013 and 2014 to a new level. Under the new two-year deal, the NFL plans to provide nearly three times more content to Twitter than last year. The commitment entails making available more video highlights and pictures from games in progress. In return, Twitter is to use an automated formula to prominently display NFL tweets and related ads in the streams of account holders likely to enjoy the information. The NFL Twitter shower will begin pouring down on Thursday when pre-season games take off. No financial terms of the partnership deal were disclosed. Win-win situation The NFL is by far the most watched sports league in the US, and its show of faith in Twitter comes at a crucial time for the messaging service. While having about 300 million users, Twitter has lately been struggling to widen its appeal, with growth going down rapidly and the company still failing to post a profit. Its shares are just around 1 percent above the firm's initial public offering price in November 2013. Twitter is now banking on the NFL's immense popularity to get users to check into its 140-character universe more frequently and heed the ads that come with the content. "We know if we put content in front of the hundreds of millions of Twitter users, they will engage with the content," NFL Vice President of Media Strategy and Business Development Vishal Shah said in a statement, praising the new venture as a win-win situation. hg/pad (AP, Reuters)
