For months now, Twitter (TWTR) shareholders have looked forward to the day when he social media site would host the first Thursday night football game. See the schedule in my previous post. The big day is finally here and thank goodness the NFL with 20 million followers is promoting the game. The Pinned Tweet even has a countdown to the start of the game showing the seconds until the game kicks off. https://twitter.com/NFL/status/775696293209317378!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");Now the question begins in what is the realistic expectation for the audience on a non-exclusive game. Cantor Fitzgerald had the following to say about the deal via Barrons:The NFL deal reportedly cost Twitter ~$10M (WSJ/Bloomberg) and allows it to live-stream 10 games free globally across devices (season ~Sep to Feb). Twitter will be able to monetize 15 slots (out of ~100/ game), whose cost comes out to ~$67K/ad slot. More recently, the WSJ reported that ad packages for all 10 games were running roughly $1-8M, and at $5M an advertiser could get 2 commercials per game as well as sponsorship around dozens of video clips of coverage per week. This seminal sports deal 1) shows how relevant the platform is for the NFL to reach this audience of over 300M users worldwide (Twitter was not the highest bidder!); 2) if successful, could accelerate Twitter’s pivot into more “event-driven” opportunities to grow users/engagement; and 3) has minimal financial risk, in our view. Initial feedback from management on advertisers’ interest is that it’s been strong, with the company having already sold a meaningful percent of the ad inventory the company controls (as of end of July). We note that 3Q16 results will include only 2 NFL games, meaning the bulk of the impact should be felt in 4Q16.IMO, the NFL deal isn't about generating ad revenue and possibly profits from these games, but rather driving engagement. The company and shareholders will gain if the discussion about MAUs is 400 to 500 million after this NFL season and combined with the other live-streaming shows from the NBA, NHL, Cheddar, Bloomberg, and 120 Sports. The ad revenues from watch a daily show will far exceed any amount related to viewing a few tweets per day. My biggest concern is that Twitter still doesn't have a place where these live streams are easily discoverable and the introduction of all the new apps for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Xbox One only adds to the risk that the platform isn't ready for this game. Outside of some minor streams, Twitter hasn't really stressed the system at scale like what could happen with an NFL game and the novelty of the first time on the site. While this could be the dawn of a new era for Twitter, investors should be ready for some hiccups. Disclosure: Long TWTR