Twitter launches TV app so you can watch football on Twitter on your TV

By Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya | September 14, 2016 | 7:37pm

Aux Features TV

Twitter and television have had a love affair for quite some time now—an affair made extra steamy by intentional live-tweeting campaigns, like ABC’s promoting its TGIT lineup. Now, the love affair is getting a lot more real, with Twitter quite literally coming to your television just in time for a different kind of TGIT. According to The Wrap, Twitter is launching an app for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Xbox One on Wednesday, which is—probably not by coincidence—one day before the first Thursday Night Football game will air on Twitter’s streaming service Periscope. So instead of having to watch on a phone or laptop, viewers tuning in for the New York Jets vs. Buffalo Bills game will be able to download the Twitter app onto their television (provided they have one of the three compatible devices) and watch there. Twitter is becoming television. It’s all happening. And you don’t even need a Twitter account to stream the games via the app.

If you’re in the U.S., you could also just keep things simple by tuning into CBS to watch the game on your television tomorrow night. But the Twitter app is a crucial part of the NFL’s attempts to go global, and the app will be available for Apple TV on a global scale immediately. For Xbox One, the app will first be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and the U.K. and the app will only be available for Amazon Fire TV and the Fire TV Stick users in the U.S. and U.K. It’s all part of Twitter’s master plan to take over the live video world: In addition to the NFL partnership, Twitter has also struck deals with the NCAA PAC-12 Conference and the millennial news network Cheddar TV to livestream their content and events.