facebooksports111Most sports fans and journalists that monitor online conversation during live sporting events probably utilize Twitter more than any other social media platform.

Facebook wants that to change.

facebook-developerThe social media giant today unveiled the Facebook Sports Stadium, a new platform that acts as an all-in-one hub for fans to track live games, see stats, read commentary from experts and teams, and see posts from friends about specific plays and games, all in real-time and reverse chronological order.

That sounds a lot like what Twitter already does. We’ll see if Facebook can attract some of its 1 billion daily active users to the company’s own live sports online hub.

“With 650 million sports fans, Facebook is the world’s largest stadium,” Facebook Product Manager Steve Kafka wrote in a blog post. “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.”

The live game updates are similar to what you might find on a ESPN app, but Facebook adds more content like photos, videos, and comments posted by your friends and pages that you’ve liked. Tabs on Facebook Sports include “Matchup,” and “Friends,” and “Experts,” and “Stats.” Recode reported that Facebook is licensing game data from a company called Sportsradar, but does not have a content partner at launch.

Users can find Facebook Sports by searching for a specific game. Facebook Sports is available today for iOS and American football games. It will expand to other platforms and sports in the near future.

“It’s a second-screen experience that we hope makes watching the broadcast even better,” Kafka noted.

Speaking of online platforms for sports fans to talk about games, a similar app is GameOn, which just received investment from Snoop Dogg and has backing from former players like Joe Montana and Lawyer Milloy. GameOn told TechCrunch that its app is like “ESPN meets WhatsApp.”

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