NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO – The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) announced today an expanded content partnership that will bring exclusive original live programming and more video to Twitter, Vine and Periscope.

The NBA, through its NBA Digital partnership with Turner, and Twitter will deliver a free live stream of a new weekly NBA pregame show with first-of-its-kind elements created specifically for integration with Twitter conversation.  The weekly pregame show will be featured exclusively on Twitter for logged-in and logged-out users.  Ahead of the 2016-17 season, the NBA will announce an additional to-be-determined show that will also stream exclusively on Twitter.

“We’re excited about bringing live content to Twitter, which has proven to be an ideal destination for real-time sports conversations,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.  “We’ve seen technology bring fans closer to our game, teams and players in ways we could have only imagined a decade ago.  This expanded partnership will help feed our fans’ growing demand for the NBA by more deeply integrating the league across Twitter’s many platforms.”

“Twitter is the fastest way to find out what’s happening in the NBA and to have a discussion about it,” said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.  “Watching NBA basketball together with Twitter is a great experience, and the league has been at the forefront of embracing new ways to reach their fans.  We’re happy to bring even more great NBA content to our global audience.”

The partnership also includes an extension of the NBA and Twitter’s Amplify program, with the league increasing its content creation across Twitter, Vine and Periscope.  NBA videos on Twitter will continue to include #NBARapidReplay highlights, #NBAVine highlights and behind-the-scenes footage, #PhantomCam player arrivals, plays of the game, animated GIFs, #NBAmixtape custom edits, “Day in the Life” takeovers and Periscope live streams of press conferences and interviews.

In addition, @NBA will also produce more videos from major events, including NBA All-Star, NBA Playoffs, The Finals, NBA Draft and others, that will feature player Q&As, takeovers and behind-the-scenes access.

Since the NBA joined Twitter in 2009, the league has built the largest Twitter community of any sports league in the world with more than 22 million followers.  The NBA recently became the first organization to surpass 2 billion loops on Vine and, since joining the platform during The Finals 2013, the NBA has built Vine’s largest community among all sports leagues, teams and players, with more than 1.8 million followers.

About the NBA
The NBA is a global sports and media business built around three professional sports leagues: the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, and the NBA Development League.  The league has established a major international presence with games and programming in 215 countries and territories in 49 languages, and NBA merchandise for sale in more than 125,000 stores in 100 countries on 6 continents.  NBA rosters at the start of the 2015-16 season featured 100 international players from 37 countries and territories.  NBA Digital’s assets include NBA.com and the NBA app, which achieved record traffic during the 2014-15 season, as well as NBA TV.  The NBA has created one of the largest social media communities in the world, with more than one billion likes and followers globally across all league, team, and player platforms.  Through NBA Cares, the league addresses important social issues by working with internationally recognized youth-serving organizations that support education, youth and family development, and health-related causes.

About Twitter
Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) is an iconic service and global platform for self-expression and live conversation. Twitter has always been the best place to see what’s happening now. Whether it’s breaking news, entertainment, sports, or everyday topics, only Twitter lets you connect with people anywhere in the world with live conversation. Anything that happens, you see it first on Twitter. By developing a fundamentally new way for people to consume, create, distribute and discover content, Twitter enables any voice to echo around the world instantly and unfiltered. Twitter is available in more than 40 languages around the world. The service can be accessed at Twitter.com, on a variety of mobile devices and via SMS. For more information, visit about.twitter.com or follow @twitter.