The Loyola men’s lacrosse team will open its season Saturday against Virginia. The Top 15 matchup — the host Greyhounds are ranked No. 4 in the Nike/US Lacrosse Preseason Top 20, while the Cavaliers are No. 11 — will make history as the first NCAA men's lacrosse game ever streamed live on Twitter.

Twitter made headlines in July 2016 when it announced the release of a new app for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Microsoft’s Xbox — one that would allow the social media website to livestream sporting events at no charge to viewers. Recently, the app provided livestreams of 10 NFL games, live videos from MLB Advanced Media, the NBA, Pac-12 Networks, Bloomberg News and Campus Insiders.

“We’re excited to introduce this new experience to people, without requiring a pay wall or having to log in to Twitter,” said Anthony Noto, chief financial officer of Twitter.

Campus Insiders, the broadcast partner of the Patriot League, confirmed that a deal with the Twitter will allow more than 300 collegiate sporting events from the Patriot League, Mountain West Conference and West Coast Conference to be streamed live on the social networking site.

“We have been discussing this deal with Twitter for a while now,” said Adam Anshell, vice president of networks and live events for Campus Insiders. “Lacrosse is huge — it has such a large, hungry fan base that is often times underserved.”

Asked why this game was chosen to be the first NCAA lacrosse game streamed live, Anshell replied, “Loyola is consistently among the top competitors across the board in athletics — especially on the lacrosse field. They do a fantastic job promoting and representing the Patriot League.”

This weekend’s contest will be the first college lacrosse game streamed live on a social media platform. Last year, Major League Lacrosse was at the vanguard of Facebook Live. Lax Sports Network produced a broadcast of a game between the New York Lizards and Rochester Rattlers that ran live on Lizards star midfielder Paul Rabil’s Facebook page.

“We are fortunate enough to partner with Campus Insiders in order to expand our digital reach to Twitter,” said Richard Wanninger, senior associate commissioner for external relations at the Patriot League. “This is such a great way to showcase the sport to a much larger audience. This game showcases two lacrosse powerhouses. It will be interesting to see how far the reach will go.”

“Streaming live games directly on Twitter is a natural evolution of the fan experience,” said Brooks Boyer, CEO of Campus Insiders’ parent company, Silver Chalice. “Unlike traditional broadcast and cable networks, Campus Insiders is set up perfectly to adapt to the evolving media landscape, and we are thrilled to be able to demonstrate this groundbreaking opportunity for our conference partners, the student-athletes we cover and the millions of fans with a passion for college sports.”

In their 2014 season opener, then-ranked No. 11 Loyola and No. 9 Virgnia met in Charlottesville, where the Cavaliers salvaged a 13-12 overtime win in heart-stopping fashion.

At the time, the live stream of the 2014 matchup was behind a paywall, so many former players and fans took to Twitter for real-time updates. After the game, former Cavaliers goalie Adam Ghitelman tweeted a congratulatory message to Virginia and called it “the best lacrosse game ever played on Twitter.”

Congrats @UVAMensLacrosse! Best lacrosse game ever played on Twitter #innovation

— Adam Ghitelman (@AGhitelman8) February 7, 2014

The Greyhounds will host the Cavaliers at the Ridley Athletic Complex in Baltimore on Saturday at 1 p.m. Along with the livestream on Twitter, the game will also be streamed on traditional network platforms, including the Patriot League Network and LoyolaGreyhounds.com.