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Twitter scores ad deal with NFL

Are you ready for some football tweets? The NFL will promote ad-supported highlights and other clips throughout the season.

Jennifer Van Grove Former Senior Writer / News
Jennifer Van Grove covered the social beat for CNET. She loves Boo the dog, CrossFit, and eating vegan. Her jokes are often in poor taste, but her articles are not.
Jennifer Van Grove
Screenshot/Jennifer Van Grove/CNET

Twitter and the National Football League have teamed up to bring the most retweetable football news, highlights, and replays to a digital screen near you.

The partnership is a clever advertising arrangement, powered by Twitter's Amplify program, that will deliver special NFL-programmed clips inside tweets, with short ads from sponsors like Verizon attached, to targeted viewers using the information network.

NFL

The promoted tweets will be distributed through the NFL Twitter handle, according to AdAge, and most will be published on game days for the duration of the season, with additional video content running throughout the week. The promoted NFL content will vary from game replays posted a minute or so after a play airs to analysis and fantasy football advice, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Vishal Shah, vice president of digital media business development for the NFL, told AdAge that he expects the league's Twitter drive to reach more than 20 million people.

The sports-advertising relationship mirrors the ones Twitter has already cemented with the NBA and ESPN. The NFL get seems like a bigger coup as the organization has historically been restrictive with the digital rights associated with its highly watched programming.

In addition, the relationship, which will have both parties sharing in ad revenue, is a big score for Twitter as Facebook threatens to invade its TV territory in the run up to the company's public offering.