Twitter Inc. is expanding its every growing stable of live, primarily sports coverage with two new initiatives, its first foray outside of the United States and a livestream of the forthcoming U.S. Presidential election-night coverage.

On the sports side, Twitter has signed a deal with the Victoria Racing Club to live stream the Melbourne Cup, one of the world’s richest horse races that is colloquially called “the race that stops the nation” in Australia thanks to its immense popularity.

Under the deal, Twitter will take a live feed from broadcast provider Seven West Media Limited for the one hour around the race. It will display its own ads during breaks, with deals already signed with bookmaker Sportsbet and insurance company AAMI.

In addition to taking the race, Twitter will also feature specially produced short videos of what is happening around the Flemington Racecourse on the day. “For us, it’s been about expanding the audience and engaging new audiences,” VRC commercial operations general manager Nick Addison told AAP. “If they’re wagering then even better, but the entertainment perspective had been our key driver. I’m not sure there are too many platforms on a global level than Twitter.”

Election night

Not resting on its laurels, Twitter has also signed a deal with Buzzfeed to livestream election coverage. Under the deal, Twitter will stream a live TV-style broadcast produced by BuzzFeed News’s political team on election night, according to Recode. The special is said to include commercials with the two companies sharing the ad revenue.

The coverage, which will be primarily directed at a younger audience, will feature BuzzFeed journalists sharing reporting and analysis through the night, with an aim to demystify how winners are called in key races during the night.

Twitter’s decision to stream election night follows its previous hookup with Bloomberg L.P. to live stream the Presidential debates, with the second debate attracting an audience of 3.2 million unique visitors on Twitter with an estimated 70 percent of viewers on the service being under 35.

Both the Melbourne Cup and Buzzfeed Presidential election night coverage are more content for Twitter’s growing live streaming empire, and with impressive viewing numbers so far, it may well turn out to be a winner for them.

Image credit: MelbourneCup/Flickr/CC by 2.0