Facebook has come up with a new way for sports fans to interact on their platform, as they look to bring more people to the social media network during big sporting moments.
While Twitter often seems to be the network of choice for those who are second screening while watching games, Facebook are looking to leverage their "650 million sports fans" into the largest stadium in the (virtual) world.
The new feature will provide fans with:
- Posts from your friends, and their comments on plays
- Posts and commentary from experts, like teams, leagues and journalists, with easy access to their Pages
- Live scores, stats and a play-by-play
- Game info, like where to find the game on TV
Re/Code detail that, while there are no content partners for the new service yet, Facebook will be getting the game data from Sport Radar for their coverage.
The interface itself will feature a tab where you can see what your friends are saying about the matches, and a separate one for content from experts and pundits on the games.
At the moment, the new feature will only cover the NFL, but in a blog post announcing the launch, Facebook said that they expect to provide support for basketball, soccer and other sports in the coming weeks.
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Today we’re launching the Facebook Sports Stadium, a dedicated place to experience sports in real-time with your friends and the world. Check out our product announcement here: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/01/facebook-sports-stadium With 650 million sports fans, Facebook is the world’s largest stadium. People already turn to Facebook to celebrate, commiserate, and talk trash with their friends and other fans.Now we’ve built a place devoted to sports so you can get the feeling you’re watching the game with your friends even when you aren’t together.
Posted by Sports on Facebook on Wednesday, 20 January 2016
For now, it's only available on iPhone in the US, presumably launching a few weeks prior to the Super Bowl to really test it and see how people use it, but they will roll it out on other platforms in the coming weeks.
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