Live coverage of college football, men’s basketball and wrestling is coming the social streaming service Twitch. Although better known for being the place fans can watch esports, a new Twitch sports channel offered by Stadium will add traditional sports content to that mix.
The newly-launched channel (https://www.twitch.tv/stadium) will include exclusive live games and events, real-time sports highlights, live studio programming featuring news and analysis, classic games, and original programming.
Stadium, owned by a collection of companies including Sinclair Broadcast Group, BAMTech, the NHL, the PGA TOUR, and Meredith Corp., will bring more than 250 live games and events to Twitch altogether. The live events will include college football, men’s basketball, and Olympic sports from top NCAA conferences, plus weekly live streams of American Ultimate Disc League games and Ring of Honor Wrestling Matches.
In addition to the main 24/7 broadcast, Stadium will program a second Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/stadium2) devoted to special events that will feature co-streaming opportunities hosted by certain Twitch and Stadium personalities.
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Co-streaming is a Twitch feature that allows a creator to share another channel’s video feed with their followers while adding in their own live video commentary. Also used by the NBA’s G League for its Twitch broadcasts, co-streaming helps to bring traditional sports to the gaming community by bringing a personalized experience to a new set of fans from their favorite esports superstars.
The launch on Twitch is part of Stadium’s effort to grow its distribution and reach new audiences on a wide variety of platforms, according to Brendan Canning, Stadium’s head of distribution.
“We continue to focus our strategy on reaching fans on whatever platform they consume sports content and are excited to introduce Stadium to the millions of active and engaged viewers on Twitch,” Canning said in a statement. “We look forward to tapping into a new, growing audience of fans.”
SportTechie Takeaway
Twitch, which has long been popular among the esports community, says it has been seeing growing traction for traditional sports on its platform since first introducing traditional sports in 2017.
This is the second 24/7 sports streaming service to launch on Twitch after the Amazon-owned streaming service announced a partnership with Eleven Sports in March. Eleven Prime offers fans a variety of live sports, including basketball, baseball, football, and hockey, as well as access to under covered sports such as darts and drone racing. Eleven Prime is free for users in the U.S., though fans can subscribe for $4.99 a month to receive an enhanced viewing experience that includes ad-free displays and additional features.
In addition to Eleven Sports and Stadium, Twitch last year struck a deal with the NBA G League to stream a handful of games. It also streamed a few Thursday Night Football games near the end of the NFL season.
“As Twitch continues to expand into adjacent areas of interest surfaced from our community of gamers, physical sports are gaining traction,” said Jane Weedon, Twitch’s director of business development, in a statement.
Sports teams, leagues and broadcasters are interested in getting their content on Twitch to access the loyal esports fan base. And Twitch’s co-streaming feature offers a way for them to do that non-invasively.