Twitch launches new sports channel for football, NBA, UFC, more

Amazon’s livestreaming platform Twitch, best known for gaming, is expanding more into sports streaming with a brand new ‘Sports’ category, and partnering with some of the world’s most famous teams.

Twitch has been the number one destination for video game livestreaming for years, but its audience has also expanded to IRL (in-real-life), chess, and live events.

More recently, live Premier League games have been shown on the platform, the first indication of Twitch’s plans to move into sports broadcasts. Now, they’re creating a dedicated channel for the section.

Twitch.tv/twitchsports will be the home of all featured sports events on the platform, which features links to other channels such as Premier League side Arsenal, the NBA, and UFC.

In their announcement, Twitch said they are “collaborating with four of the world’s biggest and most innovative football clubs. Real Madrid and Arsenal have recently started broadcasting on their newly-established Twitch channels, and they will soon be followed by Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain”

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These four world-renowned clubs will be producing exclusive content to be streamed on Twitch. This is in addition to the sports leagues already on Twitch, including the NBA, NHL, NWSL, RFL, and UFC.

There is already a growing crossover between professional sports and livestreaming, with the likes of Man City’s Sergio Aguero, F1 driver Lando Norris, NBA player Ben Simmons, NFL’s Juju Smith-Schuster and more all streaming regularly on the platform. Aguero actually became the fastest growing channel on the site when the Premier League was suspended.

To celebrate the launch of the new Twitch Sports channel, MLS star Jimmy Conrad will be hosting a livestream featuring 2-hour slots from Arsenal, House of Highlights and the UFC.

With four Premier League games being shown on Twitch this season (for UK users only), football fans who double as Twitch users will hope that this is another step forward to having more professional sports shown on the platform. Through their Prime service, Amazon have dipped their toes into acquiring the rights for Premier League matches, and Twitch could become another platform for them to show matches.