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Social media sites have begun expanding into sports offerings. In 2017, Facebook began a live-streaming partnership with Major League Baseball that brought a limited number of regular season games to the social network. That same year, Amazon began streaming NFL games. Then, in March of this year, Twitter announced a deal with Major League Soccer in the US. The three-year deal will bring live matches, highlights and features to Twitter. Chris Schlosser, Senior VP for Media at MLS hopes the live-streaming deal will help the organisation engage its fans. Especially “the youngest and most socially engaged in pro sports…”

In addition to the live games, Twitter and MLS also promise that they will collaborate on “innovative executions” to support big MLS events during the season. The first of these was a recent fixture between California soccer rivals LA Galaxy and Los Angeles FC. The game featured a fan-operated camera, located by one of the corner flags at the LA Galaxy’s StubHub Centre home. Fans were able to submit tweets with the #LALookIn hashtag. Once the tweet has been received, a bot activates the camera and replies with a live still taken from the corner camera.

The partnership joins sports innovations such as using AR to gamify the in-stadium experience and an AI platform that provides instant match analysis. Twitter’s live soccer action is viewable currently only within the US. However, fans around the world can access highlights and special features by following their favourite MLS teams and players via @MLS and @FutbolMLS.