The importance of sport in the world of digital and social media has been highlighted again by the purchase of social start up SportStream by Facebook.
SportStream was established in 2012, and backed with $3.5 million by business magnate Paul Allen, to act as an aggregator and ‘tidy-upper’ of social media posts, mainstream media news and teams’ own statistical inputs which together add up to a richer fan experience.
The company has been working with 50 teams, mainly across the US but also with Liverpool in the Barclays Premier League.
The value it provides lies in harnessing the passion and insight of fans in a community where the best posts will make it onto team feeds and into mainstream broadcasts, in turn linking back through social media into areas where teams and media have control.
Ultimately the belief is that ownership of the hearts and minds of the sports fans will lead to an easier way to their spending power as well.
SportStream’s staff and existing contracts will now move to facebook where the play clearly seems to be to win back a bigger share of the live interaction that is primarily happening on twitter around live sporting events. It may well be that part of the team ends up at Facebook’s Dublin operation in order to better target the European market.
