The website will show 10 consecutive Thursday Night Football games, which are also being shown on US television networks CBS and NBC, making the sport available to an international audience. Last year, Yahoo streamed an NFL game from London's Wembley Stadium which was watched by viewers from 185 different countries. 

“[Twitter] is built around live events already,” said Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s executive vice president of media. “We want to see how they use the unique platform, and syndicated tweets all over the Internet is going to be interesting.”

The social networking site has recently seen a dip in its number of regular users, now mostly recognised for its contributions from journalists, celebrities, and corporate branding. The deal hopes to harness the reactionary nature of Twitter, and tap into the site's existing base of sports' fans. 

With the NFL’s major broadcasting contracts up for renewal in five years time, the sports giants are looking for ways to break the digital market. Its partnership with Twitter will also see the games aired through viewer's Xbox consoles.   

Earlier this month, RTS reported on Comedy Central’s deal with social app Snapchat in providing original content to mobile app users.