Facebook has introduced a new hub that is dedicated to sport lovers. Facebook Sports Stadium is a place to experience sports in real time with friends, users and experts around the world. Facebook claims that it has 650-million sports fans on its platform, something the hub aims to take advantage of.
Facebook has long shown interest in sports but this is the first time that it has built a feature dedicated to sports. The hub will pull content from Facebook and not from any sports content producers.
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Sport has always been a big deal with Facebook users. In 2015, Facebook revealed that more than 65-million people, 15 million more than 2014, took to the social network to discuss the Super Bowl, conjuring up 265 million posts, comments, and likes. Facebook Sports Stadium is not an invention that needs cultivate a new following, the users already exist.
The social networking giant says that the hub is built such that sports fans can get the feeling that they are watching the game with their friends even when they are not together.
“With Facebook Sports, all the content on Facebook related to the game is in one place, and it comes in real time and appears chronologically” the company said in a statement.
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With Facebook Sports, fans can see posts and comments from friends, posts and commentary from experts and journalists. Users can also see live scores, statistics, play-by-play updates and information about where to find the game on TV. Facebook say that it hopes the hub becomes a second-screen experience that makes watching sports even better.
Users can find Facebook Sports by searching for the game but the company says that it is will introduce new ways to find sport events.
The battle to capture the attention of sports fans has been going on for sometime. Other platforms already offer features catering for instant updates about events, Twitter has Moments and Snapchat has Live Stories. Facebook’s entry into it, with a dedicated hub is going to stir things up. The feature has been built to lure sports fans away from Twitter and, with its 1.5-billion monthly and 1-billion daily users, Facebook might succeed and win this war.
Facebook Sports is rolling out in the US today on iPhone. The company says it will expand the feature to other platforms in the coming weeks. For now, Facebook Sports, is only available for American football games but will soon support other sports around the world like basketball, soccer, and more in the future.
