Twitch, the Amazon-owned online streaming platform primarily associated with esports, is to broadcast live coverage of two friendly matches this month featuring French Ligue 1 side Olympique de Marseille.
Marseille’s clash against Austrian third-tier outfit FC Pinzgau Saalfelden on Sunday and the friendly against German fourth-tier side SV Heimstetten on July 22 will both be streamed on Marseille’s Twitch channel.
Corentin Dubois, partnerships manager at Twitch, said: “It’s the very first time that Twitch will broadcast a live match featuring a Ligue 1 club on its platform.”
Twitch has been widening its streaming coverage to include other sports.
Amazon, which bought Twitch just under six years ago for $970m (€848m), announced last month that it its four free-to-view Premier League matches during the remainder of the 2019-20 season would also be broadcast on the platform.
When Amazon acquired the NFL’s Thursday Night Football rights in 2018, it opted to use Twitch to distribute an alternate stream, with content creators on the platform invited to provide their own commentary and to interact with the audience directly during the games via the service’s live chat functionality. A deal to show multiple weekly NBA G League games in the same way quickly followed.
Earlier this year, Twitch also secured rights to broadcast matches from the National Women’s Soccer League in its domestic US market and was also named the NWSL’s exclusive international media rights-holder in a three-year deal.