The UFC has long embraced social media as a means of pushing its athletes and its content. So could the promotion wind up streaming live fights on Twitter? According to a high-ranking official of the networking service, it could absolutely happen in the very near future.
In a recent interview with BuzzFeed.com, Twitter COO and CFO Anthony Noto outline his company’s plan to expand its live streaming options and made it a point to mention UFC content as a real possibility.
“We have a really big audience when there’s a pay-per-view UFC match,” Noto told BuzzFeed News. “Should we provide that content to the audience on Twitter that’s not watching it, but might like to after seeing tweets about it? That’s something we’d consider.”
Twitter spent $10 million to air Thursday night NFL games in the 2016 season, but Amazon picked up a similar package for 2017 for $50 million, leaving Twitter with an opportunity to bring on new content.
UFC officials did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment.
BuzzFeed news pointed out that while Twitter is losing the NFL, the one-season deal proved a successful experiment by “letting programmers know it was dead serious about live, and demonstrating an infrastructure that could handle millions of viewers tuning in at once.”
Noto agreed.
“It was instrumental [in generating additional interest],” Noto told BuzzFeed News. “It’s a really high-profile brand and one that has really high expectations for product quality. It caused people to come and see if we could deliver.”
For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.
