Twitter, Inc.’s long march to reposition itself as an online sports broadcaster has received another boost, with the company announcing it has signed a deal to stream games from both the National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Baseball (MLB).

Under the deal with MLB Advanced Media, which owns the online streaming rights to both MLB and NHL, Twitter has received the rights to live stream weekly out-of-market games from both sports.

Out-of-market games are events unable to be seen by viewers on broadcast or cable television due to those games not being broadcast in their local market. What isn’t clear is whether Twitter will block the streams to viewers who do have local broadcasts; the once-per-week live streams are only said to be available for free to logged-in and logged-out Twitter users.

In addition, MLBAM’s 120 Sports will also produce an exclusive, nightly multi-sports highlights show called “The Rally” that will deliver Twitter its first regularly programmed live video content.

The show is said to utilize a distinct format designed to integrate with Twitter’s platform, using Twitter-based data to determine live trending topics as well as adding other interactive elements for instant conversation and analysis of the moments that matter most to sports fans.

“Twitter has long been a great partner and platform for both baseball and hockey fans as they follow their favorite teams and players every day,” MLBAM’s Executive Vice President, Business Kenny Gersh said in a statement. “We know fans will embrace what this wide-ranging partnership brings – expanded and reliable access to live baseball and hockey and the introduction of Twitter’s first daily live highlight show delivered intuitively to a platform where they’re actively engaged with the games.”

Growing roster

The announcement that Twitter has obtained streaming rights to MLB and NHL games adds to a growing roster of sports for the company including an original content deal with the National Basketball Association (NBA) and rights to stream the National Football League (NFL) Thursday Night Football games.

The strategy, as we’ve said before, still seems to be somewhat bizarre given that Twitter has no background as a sports broadcaster but is either an attempt by the company to draw more users to its core platform by giving them additional services, or as we mentioned above a concerted effort to reposition the company as being a live streaming service provided with chat bottled on for good measure.

A schedule for the MLB and NHL games will be available at a later date.

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