The Discovery-owned international sports broadcaster Eurosport has agreed a content and advertising deal with social media platform Twitter that will allow the publishing of real-time highlights from the 2020 summer Olympic Games in certain European markets.
The tie-up will allow Twitter users in 16 European countries to watch highlights clips, including medal-winning moments, along with “locally relevant moments” and the best moments from Eurosport’s countdown Road to Tokyo coverage.
Territories covered by the social media offering include Belgium, Czech Republic, German-speaking countries, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, the Nordic countries, Poland, Portugal and the UK.
In addition, live streaming of the Tokyo 2020 opening and closing ceremonies will be provided in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.
Eurosport’s Olympics clips in the UK will be subject to a three-hour delay due to the terms of Discovery’s existing sublicense agreement with public-service broadcaster the BBC.
On the advertising side, Discovery and Eurosport will offer the International Olympic Committee’s TOP partners dedicated content marketing solutions to further promote their brands alongside the Olympic Games in Europe. All content will be supported by official Eurosport Twitter handles, sold as Twitter in-stream sponsorships by the Discovery, Eurosport and Twitter sales teams.
Mike Rich, head of sports marketing solutions at Discovery, said: “This partnership provides 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.
“Tokyo 2020 offers an unparalleled opportunity as the first summer Olympics where a brand can work with one partner to engage consumers across Europe.”
Kay Madati, global vice-president and head of content partnerships at Twitter, added: “We’re excited that Eurosport will bring real time highlights and live coverage of the Opening and Closing ceremonies to fans across Europe, fuelling the robust Olympics conversation that will be happening on Twitter.”
Twitter also has a Tokyo 2020 agreement in place with NBCUniversal, the US broadcast rights-holder to the games. That deal allows selected live streaming to be shown on Twitter, plus a live 20-minute programme produced by NBC specifically for the social media platform.
The wide-ranging content publishing and ad sales agreement excludes both Russia and France. Russia was excluded from Discovery’s €1.3bn ($1.41bn) deal for the European broadcast rights to the Olympics from 2018 to 2024, while rights in France to PyeongChang 2018 and Tokyo 2020 were excluded as they had already been sold to public-service broadcaster France Télévisions.