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Twitter has put its foot into the Australian sporting landscape door by signing a deal with the Victorian Racing Club (VRC) allowing them to live stream the Melbourne Cup this year.
In what will be the first sporting event the social media giant will attach itself to outside of the United States, the broadcast will be streamed to a worldwide audience for free.
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The broadcast will be produced by the Seven network, who have all the free-to-air TV rights to the race that stops the nation.
While Seven had their own free live streaming services last year to partner their television coverage, they’re now using those resources to provide the stream for Twitter.
Whether or not they continue with their own services again this year is still unknown.
The Twitter stream will be a one-hour broadcast beginning at 2:30pm (AEDT) and will cover a half hour build-up, the big race itself, and then a short post-race wrap with interviews and replays.
This comes off the back of Sportsbet announcing their live streaming rights to the big day, with the betting company providing a live and free online stream to all their customers.
While the deal is just for 2016, the growing interest in streaming and the mix of social media platforms with sport in the digital era all means that it is certainly unlikely to be a ‘one and done’ situation.
It’s apparently the first step in a long-term plan for Twitter, who are keen to jump into the vast Australian sporting market.
“It’s a pretty big statement of our confidence in the Australian market,” said Twitter Asia Pacific vice president Rishi Jaitly.
“I couldn’t think of a better way for us to introduce the product to an Australian audience. We’re not going to stop there.”
The #MelbourneCup will be live streamed on Twitter around the world ? https://t.co/v976igM4ta pic.twitter.com/bZh274s8KO
— Twitter Sports ?? (@TwitterSportsAU) October 12, 2016
The VRC has their own motives as well.
As the race brings in more and more international horses every year, and with it global interest, the VRC is looking to expand and gain more exposure.
“It’s known as the race that stops a nation, which is great. But that global reach and appeal has particularly been a focus of the VRC,” VRC executive general manager of commercial operations, Nick Addison, said.
It’s been a fruitful year for Twitter in the world of sport as they probe into a relatively untapped resource among the major social media platforms.
Just earlier this year, they signed a massive $10 million streaming rights deal with the NFL to live stream ten matches across the season.
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