Social media has become one of the places to share thoughts on a single sports event. As people become more mobile and vocal on social media, Facebook now wants you to use its platform to discuss a major sporting event. This week, the service announced the creation of Facebook Sports Stadium which comes in time for the NFL Conference Championship games. The platforms will allow fans to talk gather, celebrate and talk smack about the game.

In the official announcement, some features were unveiled about Facebook Sports Stadium:

  • 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

With over 1.55 billion users and 650 million of which are sports fans, Facebook wants to tap into a base to which it really hasn’t reached out. And with Sports Stadium, Facebook hopes that instead of going to Snapchat, Twitter and other social media platforms, people will just remain on its service to talk about the big game.

According to re/code, Facebook just recently announced a partnership with Nielsen to measure audience on the service in hopes of making it more attractive to advertisers. And it announced that it’s already a gathering place for big sports events such as the 2014 World Cup (350 million people during the tournament) and Super Bowl XLIX (65 million).

So will people flock to Facebook Sports Stadium? The whole thing is that the platform has to be user-friendly and uncomplicated. And if it can provide real-time stats, standings and get sports celebrities and reporters to use it to show that it can be a good place, then it might work. But if it’s clunky, slow and become negative, then it might not.

We’ll see if Facebook Sports Stadium can become the place to be and be seen on social media.

[re/code]

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.