Facebook has announced a new feature, called Facebook Sports Stadium, that will allow users congregate all the trash talk and statistics about the game they are following in one place, similar to Twitter and ESPN, according to wired.com.
The new feature will let fans see what their friends are commenting about the game, as well as what the experts are saying about the contest. Additionally, live stats will be posted along with the comments from the leagues and the teams, and likely ads targeted to the sports fans using the hub.
Facebook hopes to gain an advantage over Twitter and other rivals by offering the immediacy of live events, while making the best of the user friendly format of Facebook’s pages, and the overcoming the burden of Twitter’s character limit.
Facebook product manager, Steve Kafka said in a blog post which announced the new hub, “Sports is a global interest that connects people around the world. This product makes connecting over sports more fun and engaging, and we will continue listening to feedback to make it even better.”
The company hopes those who are unable to watch a game can follow along in real time with the new hub, and expects those watching at home to participate as well in the discussions. By grouping the content together, it won’t flood the pages of non-fans, as some game apps were doing in the past, alienating those users who choose not to participate.
According to Facebook, they have some 650 million sports fans using their platform, so if it has a successful launch, it could make things difficult for some of the other sports related sites. The company reportedly had about 65 million posts for last year’s Super Bowl, but they were for the most part spread across the main pages and the non-chronological format made it difficult for sports enthusiasts to keep up.
Facebook says it has plans to expand into basketball, soccer and other sports in the near future.