Twitter will stream live NFL games this fall

Credit: Ronald Martinez

Credit: Ronald Martinez


The NFL and Twitter announced Tuesday that they will stream live broadcasts of Thursday Night Football without authentication to the more than 800 million users around the globe on the Twitter app for the 2016 season.

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The NFL schedule, which will be released in full this month, will include 10 Thursday night games.

CBS will broadcast the first five Thursday night and NBC will carry the next five. The games will also be simulcast on the NFL Network. What's to be on the Twitter stream will be what's broadcast by NBC and CBS.

But getting increased viewership for Thursday night games has been difficult. The Thursday night broadcasts haven't brought in half as many fans as Sundays do.

According to ratings house Nielsen, 199 million people tuned into the 2015 NFL regular season, representing 78 percent of all television homes and 67 percent of potential viewers in the United States. NFL games accounted for the top 25 and 46 of the 50 most-watched TV shows among all programming in 2015.