Twitter may have scored a field goal.
Twitter shares climbed more than 4 percent Friday after the first National Football League (NFL) game was livestreamed through the social network.
The CBS livestream broadcast on Twitter of Thursday night's game between the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills allowed audiences to tweet and see Twitter user commentary alongside the football game stream.
While viewer feedback generally appeared positive, based on their tweets, the NFL livestream had buffering issues that resulted in a delay of roughly 30 seconds.
The NFL deal is one of several high-profile sports league deals Twitter has inked, including a deal with the NBA.
According to the Macquarie Research, ads were sold directly to Twitter, giving the company the ability to target ads to its audience in all of its devices.
Twitter 2016 performance
Twitter's shares are still down more than 17 percent year-to-date below $20 a share and have failed to close above the initial offering price of $26 a share since last November. Co-founder Ev Williams has said the company must "consider the right options" amid acquisition speculation. Still, Twitter has yet to receive any real expressions of interest people familiar with the matter told CNBC.
The New York Jets won the Buffalo Bills 37-31. Twitter plans to live stream nine more NFL games this season.
- CNBC's David Faber and Anita Balakrishnan contributed.