Twitter Expands Sports Presence With Curated Euro 2012 Page

(Mashable.com) Building off a partnership with NASCAR to corral relevant tweets and photos for the Pocono 400 earlier this month, Twitter on Friday launched a curated destination for the Euro 2012 soccer championship.
The new page — Twitter.com/#Euro2012 — is a home for the “best and most relevant Tweets from
commentators, broadcasters, journalists, players, former players and lots more” during the world’s second biggest international soccer tournament, according to a post to the official Twitter blog by Omid Ashtari, the company’s head of sports and entertainment.
The page also provides a group of top follows for soccer fans and collects Euro 2012 photos from around the Twittersphere. Friday’s quarterfinal match between Germany and Greece will be the first to take place since the page’s launch. Searching the #Euro2012 hashtag on Twitter.com takes you directly to the curated stream.
When Twitter announced the NASCAR partnership at a joint press conference in May, we pointed out that similar initiatives were likely headed down the pike as well as the microblogging network appears to dip its toes into strategies for expanding to a more editorial, media-like role.


SEE ALSO: Euro 2012: How Soccer is Going Digital Unlike the NASCAR arrangement, however, Twitter.com/#Euro2012 is not part of an official partnership with UEFA, the governing body of European soccer that puts on the one-every-four-years tournament. But a Twitter spokesperson told Mashable that UEFA has “known about the project and are supportive.”
If Twitter does indeed have designs on becoming something more resembling a media outlet, sports are a logical starting point. Sports moments dominate the tweets-per-second record book, and the network has become a go-to destination for breaking news and fan discussion during games.
Do you think the #Euro2012 page is actually useful or will you continue to follow the tournament other ways instead? Share your take in the comments.