In case you hadn’t heard, you can now stream some professional football games live on Twitter without a cable subscription.
The first Twitter National Football League stream happened last week, and according to the NFL’s stats, the 2016 Thursday Night Football season kickoff last week featuring the New York Jets versus the Buffalo Bills, plus the pregame show, reached 2.3 million users worldwide on Twitter.
That figure reflects the number of people who watched the game for a minimum of three seconds with that video taking up their full screen. The game alone, not including the pre-show, reached 2.1 million viewers in Twitter. On average at any moment, some 243,000 people were watching the game on Twitter properties, with each viewer catching an average of 22 minutes of action.
Twitter still has a long way to go to reach TV-level viewership, however. Some 48.1 million people tuned in to watch the game in full or part on either CBS or the NFL Network. Keep in mind, though: this was the first NFL game to stream live on Twitter, so viewership may increase as more people learn they can watch games there. Games are also available via NFL Mobile from Verizon, Watch NFL Network, NFL Game Pass, and authenticated users on CBS Digital platforms.
Nine more Thursday Night Football games will air on the platform this season; tune in on Thursdays starting at 6 p.m. ET for the pregame show and 8 p.m. for the game.
Meanwhile, Twitter is also getting some new live content from MLB, NBA, Pac 12 Networks, Campus Insiders, Cheddar, and Bloomberg News. Web users can enjoy this new content as well as browse top tweets, Vines, and Periscopes regardless of whether they have a Twitter account or pay TV subscription.
