Twitch has added retired NFL player Shannon Sharpe to its roster of prominent personalities co-streaming Thursday Night Football. Sharpe is also a former CBS Sports football analyst and current co-host of Skip and Shannon: Undisputed on FS1.
The Hall of Famer played tight end for the Denver Broncos and Baltimore Ravens, and won two Super Bowls with the Broncos plus a third with the Ravens. His addition to the Twitch Thursday Night Football co-streaming roster is part of Twitch’s efforts to increase the appeal of traditional sports streams on its platform. Adding color commentary from well-known personalities during live events may help broaden Twitch’s audience outside of just esports.
Last week, the social streaming service announced a number of new interactive video features for the 11 Thursday Night Football streams it is scheduled to host this season. Amazon Prime-owned Twitch has tended to favor esports personalities for its NFL co-streams because of their ability to attract esports fans, particularly those that might not traditionally seek out an NFL stream. Esports personality GoldGlove co-streamed the inaugural broadcast, and also on the roster this season is Twitch legend TimTheTatman. The addition of Sharpe is interesting because it takes the social streaming service in a more traditional direction.
Amazon Prime Video, the parent company of Twitch, has similarly attempted to appeal to traditional sports fans by enhancing stream and video features with overlays targeted at the data-savvy NFL fan. Officially going live this week is a feature that enables fans to point-and-click on prompts to see game stats without interrupting the stream.
SportTechie Takeaway
More and more traditional sports events are being live streamed, and broadcasters are increasingly hunting for ways to differentiate themselves by adding layers of interactivity to the experience. While adding a diverse set of co-streamers, Twitch is attempting to widen its total addressable market. Additional layers of gamification, via new features that lets viewers make game and quarter play guesses, as well as a stats-heavy focus this season, are intended to simultaneously attract even the most loyal NFL fans. Amazon is hoping to usher in a new era of interactivity for the game-watching experience that meshes the primary and second-screen experiences.