Superbowl 50 in two weeks time will be fought out between the Denver Bronco’, making their eighth appearance and led by veteran and legend of the game Peyton Manning, and the Carolina Panthers, looking for their first win and with a quarterback in Cam Newton who is hailed as the future of the game.
It will as ever be one of the most watched sporting events of the year. Sky Sports on this side of the Atlantic are showing a little of what it means in the US by turning over Sky Sports 3, where games are generally shown through the season to Super Bowl exclusive programming 24 hours a day for the seven days leading into the game.
It will also be one of the events of 2016 that defines new trends and new ideas into how sport and brands connect with fans.
It’s entirely possible that the race for the biggest new development in this area is already won.
During the week Facebook announced the launch of the Facebook Sports Stadium. It’s a simple aggregation of the most relevant content around a game. In that sense it is little different from many of the apps that are already out there pulling together fans. The difference is it’s Facebook where half of the 1.5 billion users around the world already claim to be sports fans.
The new ‘experience launched this weekend for the two NFL Championship games and is currently available in the US on iPhone. The rollout to other sports, platforms and areas will be rapid.
This is Facebook’s first ever dedicated sports product. Yet it is already the home for so many apps and channels drawing fans together.
Where this wins is in how simple it is. Watching the Bronco’s vs Patriots game last night I was flicking between the NFL app to keep updated on the stats in real time, the Twitter app to follow and contribute to the gathered ‘conversation around the game hashtag and watching the game on screen.
It’s how many of us consume sport even live at a game. If it’s not shared, you weren’t ‘really’ there or so the theme goes.
What the new Sports Stadium does is put everything you need in the one place. It also separates out your friends watching the game from the experts which will include media, players and more.
The app has four tabs, those two plus a Matchup screen which delivers all the key information on the game and a Stats page for those of more analytic persuasion. Brands will clamour to serve this social audience in the same way as they have the traditional Super Bowl TV audience where 30 second TV spots on CBS command a fee this year of $5 Million, up 11 per cent on last year.
“With 650 million sports fans, Facebook is the world’s largest stadium” said Facebook Product Manager Steve Kafka.
“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.”
“With Facebook Sports Stadium, all the content on Facebook related to the game is in one place, and it comes in real time and appears chronologically.”
“You can get to Facebook Sports Stadium by searching for the game, and we’ll surface new ways to get there as the product evolves.”
“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.”
Twitter has always had an edge when it came to sport because it was the place where more journalist and opinion formers gathered. It was real time and fully chronological so it was the ‘in the moment place to be.
This weekend, that lead was cut dramatically. In a year when sport will dominate like never before, Facebook’s timing is as immaculate as Cam Newton’s. And that is saying something.
