The sports media world currently is abuzz over Twitter’s and Sports Illustrated’s live stream of the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” this week, and rightly so. While there certainly is room for improvement in the personalization of the experience, most are greeting this experiment as an early success.
Undoubtedly, Twitter’s broadcast of a live NFL game is another major step in the inevitable transition away from linear cable TV, but in what is likely to be a “winner-take-most” market, another major digital player recently made a quiet move to build its foundation for success in the unpredictable future of sports TV.