Twitter Stock Spikes After Deal With NFL

Twitter Inc TWTR announced a two-year deal with the National Football League (NFL) today to deliver "uniquely packaged" official NFL video and content to fans. This reiterates Twitter's emphasis on large live events to engage its community and find new users.

In this deal, Twitter will "sell ads directly against the NFL's content, and share revenue from those sales," according to Re/code. That differs from prior deals, where Twitter and its partners sold the content together.

Re/code also speculated that this was part of Twitter's Project Lightning. Announced in June, Project Lightning will allow users to have a new, unique tab in the Twitter app where they can follow live events – allowing the company to easily categorize and engage the millions of tweets sent each day.

Vishal Shah, vice president of media strategy & business development at the NFL, said that the NFL hopes to capitalize on the "massive amount of NFL-related conversation our fans, teams and players are having on the platform." Additionally, "Providing the Twitter audience with engaging and authentic NFL content will magnify their social experience throughout the year," he added.

For Twitter, the partnership allows the company to deliver fans with more NFL news, "faster than ever before," according to Glenn Brown, head of Twitter content partnerships and Amplify.

Twitter stock has gained nearly 4 percent in early trading on Monday, rising by $1 to $28.11 at 9:40 a.m. in New York. Even with those gains, the stock has declined 21 percent this year, and 45 percent since its mid-April highs.