
Introducing the Facebook Sports Stadium - pmcpinto
http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/01/facebook-sports-stadium
======
SimonPStevens
I've been thinking about this for a while, but I'm going to write down my
prediction so in years to come I can point back to this post and say I saw it
coming.

Prediction here -> They will make a VR version of this sports stadium app. It
will become the biggest use case for VR (outside of geek circles).

Social sports viewing is VR's 'killer app'. It is what will take VR
mainstream, and I believe it's the main reason for Facebook's purchase of
oculus.

Imagine a VR sports stadium where users can sit in their own lounge, with
their VR headset on, next to a avatar of each of their friends, who are in
their own lounges. Everyone can have the best seat in the house. The virtual
capacity of the stadium is physically unbounded. The VR adds the atmosphere
that watching the TV doesn't provide. It also avoids the major VR problem of
how to move around in the virtual world, because you don't have to. In the VR
world you are sitting in a seat, just like in the real world.

Perhaps in many years time, no one will physically attend sporting events at
all.

~~~
spike021
Not so sure about this opinion actually.

Whenever I go to baseball games at AT&T Park in San Francisco, there's just
something about the energy in the stadium, the sights of the park and
surrounding area+views, the "different" (using that word loosely here) food,
the cold foggy/windy night games, etc. You can get there early and try to get
autographs, which not everybody is into but it's a cool benefit. You have a
chance of catching foul or homerun balls.

I think using a VR version of this app would definitely be better than TV, but
I wouldn't necessarily say it becomes any more of a comparatively better
experience. I don't think it can quite match watching a game live and at the
stadium itself.

~~~
qq66
It doesn't need to be better than the stadium, it's competing with the TV. And
in many ways, it can be better than both... Imagine being able to watch the
game from the perspective of the baseball itself!

~~~
spike021
With respect to just competing with TV, then I agree. I think my original
comment was directed more at how the OP made it sound like it would replace
the need/reason to actually go to the stadium for a live game.

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noir-york
Twitter must be pissing themselves. This is the twitter stream, without the
noise, in Facebook.

~~~
utnick
yea following sports games is one of the biggest use cases for twitter and
something they are the best at.

I'm interested to see how well this works. Seems like most of the good
analysts currently post on twitter instead of facebook so that could be a
limitation... but if they get a bigger audience on facebook now, that could
drive them to change.

~~~
pcora
on my case, since I don't follow sports is checking the weather. it's sad
because I really like twitter but I don't see a bright future for them.

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petepete
It's an interesting idea. I'm not sure how well it will work, and how 'noisy'
it will be. If anyone's ever followed a busy match thread[0] on reddit they'll
know what I mean. I'd like to give it a try, but not sure it'll be replacing
FotMob[1] any time soon as my goto place for team news, scores and tables.

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/29l7v1/match_thread...](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/29l7v1/match_thread_united_states_vs_belgium/)

[1]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobilefoot...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobilefootie.fotmobpro)

~~~
jcrites
Reddit threads are indiscriminate. I'd expect Facebook to filter the content
to intelligently include posts from people that you know and correspond with
frequently. There will probably be even more activity total across the system,
but you'll see messages that you have a greater chance of caring about.

I suspect one of the goals of this product is to help sports fans group
together, while also keeping sports-related content off the newsfeeds of non-
sports-fans.

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kcorbitt
When I saw the title I was really hoping that this would tie in with their
Oculus purchase to have a stadium experience for live sports in VR. :D

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joefarish
What I really want is the ability to remove spoilers about sports events / TV
shows from my news feed.

~~~
davnicwil
Yes! Reading this I was thinking exactly the same - if they've worked on a way
to group the sports posts and comments by game etc, perhaps they'll also let
you filter them _out_ of your feed using the same metadata, so that spoilers
are no longer an issue.

I think this could actually benefit them, as well as just being a nice
feature. As it is I personally avoid Facebook entirely after some games until
I catch the highlights, because I know with certainty that I will see the
result on my feed.

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pjc50
From the title I thought, "uhoh, Facebook have bought a stadium":

[http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/enro...](http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/enron_field_curse)

As others have said, this looks like FB trying to capture the anarchic live
commenting/participation behaviour from Twitter. I've never seen anyone
attempt to do anything "live" on Facebook, that was always Twitter's ballpark.

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why-el
To me this can evolve to compete with Snapchat if they continue to penetrate
interesting social circles like Sports and live Music events.

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ultimatejman
They need to make being a part of the action as easy as using a hashtag.

People already watch games with fb open on their phone/laptop so not too much
behaviour change needed. Just a smooth way to get people to this part of the
platform at the right time, ideas:

I would do this by sending a notification to users who support a team page,
when their team is about to play...

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jcrites
Neat concept. Presumably lets all the sports-interested people congregate,
while I assume also helping keep sports-related content away from folks who
are not interested. There's probably a lot of pent up user demand for "what
people do online while also watching the game" \- I notice they position the
feature as "second screen". Seems like a good tailored innovation for social
media.

This will also potentially prove to be a way to claim some of the ad dollars
spent on sports advertising. There are probably more advertising dollars
willing to target messaging around a game than can afford primetime slots.
Imagine the effectiveness of ads with the viewership of sports while targeted
with the context of a user's FB account. They might be able to draw ad dollars
away from TV, or benefit from pent up demand for more advertising opportunity.
It'll be interesting to see how sustained its popularity proves to be during
sports games - if consistent I suspect it will be lucrative while also making
users happy.

Sports is an interesting nexus of the problems that FB has chosen to focus on.
Content that's social, but digital, and real-time. I've noticed that, though I
can obtain most TV and movie content that I want to watch online digitally,
live sports are one of the holdouts. I wonder if success at Sports Stadium
might help FB get a crack at streaming them live online, down the road. (1)
The advertising could be way more effective if each user is shown a targeted
video ad based on the context of their FB account - cable has limited (no?)
personalized advertising (2) The alternating intensity and natural breaks in
sports games means users accept existing advertising, and embrace it (Super
Bowl Ads).

FB must be thinking about ways to leverage FB accounts for effective targeting
advertising in more contexts while also delivering compelling user value at
the same time - sports seems like an interesting candidate for expanding in
that way. A user wouldn't want to link their FB account to their TV for no
reason, for example, but if FB can find its way into user experiences like
that naturally - such as streaming and discussing sports online - then they'll
be able to capitalize on their ad targeting power.

I also see a potential connection to Oculus Rift here. Imagine if you could
watch the game live in 3D over Occulus Rift - an extension of Sports Stadium
and perhaps a viable application for Occulus. FB must be searching for the
"killer app" that makes Occulus users both want to use it en mass, and also
congregate online socially. Perhaps 3D sports is just the thing. It will
probably take some doing to record and play live 3D video suitable for
Occulus, but if they can pull off an experience that "makes you feel like
you're there", with 3D and immersive audio, too, then given folks' interest in
sports I could see it going somewhere. (Watching regular 3D movies on an
Occulus is not so compelling by comparison. Live action sports or broadway
plays will be something else entirely.) Killer app: put on the Occulus and
feel like you're in the sports stadium watching the game right from the field.

~~~
TheFA
Next time the rights come up for auction all it takes for gaining the
streaming material for sport is cash, be it NFL, NBA, EPL, MLB etc,

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xd1936
I'm surprised that this exists. They just did a spring cleaning of apps,
discontinuing Facebook Rooms, Slingshot, etc.

~~~
lojack
Seems to me like this would free up resources to work on and experiment with
other ideas that may or may not end up panning out.

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galfarragem
Great spam filter for FB News Feed page.

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osi
Is the the emergence of their Sportstream acquisition?

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sportstream#/entity](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sportstream#/entity)

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trm42
Hopefully Facebook moves all sports-related status updates to that app, not
interested in people's empty shouting where the ball, puck or fist went.

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linux_devil
Real time score updates displayed on Google cards is also helpful, but
creating a platform so engaging will be clean and unique.

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santiagobasulto
Would they support Ultimate?

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Cypher
Live stream and chat didn't we have this in 2009?

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esseti
Super innovative way to share videos and screenshots.. in a zip file. ;)

