• by Colin Kirkland , 2 hours ago

Days before the Super Bowl, Threads is attempting to compete with X over mid-game fan discussions, bringing popular creators and podcasters to broadcast the experience from a branded booth within the NFL Media Center.

“This year we set up a booth for creators and podcasters to record content,” Connor Hayes, the head of Threads, posted on Thursday, sharing images of the booth designed with a Threads-specific NFL hashtag for Super Bowl LX.

In one image shared by Hayes, Pittsburgh Steelers teammates James “Deebo” Harrison and Joe Haden utilize the booth as part of their NFL-focused podcast and digital series “Deebo & Joe,” answering questions posted by Threads users in real time. 

Between now and the Big Game on Sunday, it can be expected that the Threads booth will feature more relevant celebrities and popular creators in the Media Center booth, attempting to stoke more NFL-specific conversation among Threads users. 

As Threads adds more users and advertisers, sports fandom could play a large role in boosting user engagement across the evolving platform due to the wide variety of leagues, teams and organizations, as well as the regularity of sports programming across the globe.

This has always been the case for X, the app previously known as Twitter.

Sports ranks as the most-discussed and most engaging topic on X, with the app prioritizing the NFL through a designated content portal.

In 2024, the Super Bowl garnered 19.2 million posts and 1.1 billion video views on X, while 56% of users on the platform identified as NFL fans and 40% of all posts about sports were specifically about the NFL.

By featuring more creators -- especially video podcasters -- in a live sports context, Threads is looking to lure sports fans and advertisers away from X, the app and platform owned by Elon Musk, which is currently undergoing multiple investigations regarding its controversial AI chatbot Grok.