According to Nielsen, 95% of total sports program viewing happens in real-time and what better way to take advantage of real-time than to tap social media networks.
In an effort to ensure viewers they can access events on any device at any time, US sports tested the online streaming waters just last year. They picked Yahoo to screen one game and the test case successfully nabbed 15.2 million viewers and 33.6 million video streams.
This test case eventually cemented the deal with Twitter to publish more content online. As NFL is the most popular sport in America, this is considered a bold step and will allow it to build a new audience through the social network while at the same time retain the existing one through the usual broadcast by CBS and NBC.
