April 18, 2018

This year’s International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Nigeria Open will witness a new vista as the Africa’s elite tournament will be live streamed on Twitter handle for its users across the globe.

ITTF and Twitter announced on Wednesday a deal to live stream the ITTF’s 2018 Challenge Series events to a global audience to complement ITTF’s current streaming platform.

The ITTF Nigeria Open which is one of ITTF Challenge Series events for 2018 would hold from Aug. 8 to Aug. 12 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.

According to ITTF, the event will be live on Twitter handle all over the world.

Both organisations said the deal was cemented on April 18 after a successful live stream of the Slovenia Open which attracted over 200,000 viewers on Twitter.

It said table tennis fans should look forward to a live stream of the Marquee ITTF tournaments from Nigeria, Thailand, Belgium and Belarus, live and free to Twitter users around the world.

The live streams of all Challenge events matches will be available to logged-in and logged-out users on Twitter and connected devices via ITTF’s official Twitter account @ITTFWorld.

According to Maurizio Barbieri, Twitter’s Southeast Asia Head of Sports Partnerships, said the streaming will feature additional premium highlights from each tournament.

“Both the live streams and highlight clips on Twitter will also be available to content sponsors to include pre-roll advertising packages.

“Twitter is where the world of sport is happening every single day, and we know from the conversations on Twitter that there is a growing appetite for elite table tennis.

“Live streaming the ITTF Challenge Series events on Twitter makes it easier than ever for existing fans to watch the players in the world go head-to-head.

“It will also expose the sport to an entirely new audience to help increase the growing popularity of table tennis,’’ they said in a statement.

Matthew POUND, ITTF Head of Media, said: “The ITTF is thrilled to be partnering with Twitter to stream live the remainder of the ITTF Challenge Series events of 2018.

“Twitter will provide the perfect platform to complement ITTF’s current streaming platform itTV and introduce new fans to the sport of table tennis.’’

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Egyptian Omar Assar won the 2017 edition of the competition.