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Discovery and its European sports channel Eurosport are teaming with Twitter to bring Eurosport’s coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics to users of the short message platform across Europe.
The deal, unveiled at international TV market MIPCOM in Cannes on Tuesday, will see Eurosport publish real-time Olympic Games highlights on Twitter to complement its comprehensive coverage of Tokyo 2020. The sports network will provide some 3,500 hours of coverage of the games on its network, on Eurosport.com and the Eurosport app. The tie-in will also allow Eurosport to offer Olympic Games advertisers dedicated sponsorship opportunities for Twitter content. Twitter will sell in-stream sponsorships together with the Discovery and Eurosport sales teams.
The coverage will include highlights from Eurosport’s pre-Games Road to Tokyo coverage, extensive event highlight clips, as well as live coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies.
Coverage will vary slightly according to territory. The Twitter deal covers 16 European countries, including Germany, Italy and the U.K. Clips in the U.K. will be subject to a three-hour delay due to an existing sublicense agreement with the BBC.
“People come to Twitter to discover and talk about what’s happening and the Olympics will be the biggest moment in sports in 2020,” said Kay Madati, global vp and head of content partnerships at Twitter. “We’re excited that Eurosport will bring real time highlights and live coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies to fans across Europe, fueling the robust Olympics conversation that will be happening on Twitter.”
Mike Rich, head of sports marketing solutions at Discovery, said the Twitter deal represented “a huge opportunity for brands to connect with the world’s biggest sporting event and Twitter’s huge and hyper-engaged audience at a time when the eyes of the world will be on Tokyo 2020.”
Discovery paid $1.45 billion for the European rights for the Olympics starting with PyeongChang 2018 and running through 2024. The Games are a key part of Discovery’s expansion strategy in Europe, where it sees an opportunity to compete with global SVOD players by distinguishing itself, and Eurosport, as the go-to location for live sports.
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