Facebook US planning to broadcast live sporting events

Facebook US planning to broadcast live sporting events

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MUMBAI: Facebook is actively looking at increasing its sports presence by launching its new Facebook Live service.

Speaking at a Sportel Tech Panel session on Social Video, Facebook global head of strategic partner development - sports media Rob Shaw pointed that the recent introduction of the Facebook Live service had altered the dynamics of its relationships with sporting rights holders.

According to Independent, a UK based online news portal, Facebook has recently launched a new platform for video content in the US called 'Watch'. Facebook has two billion users a month and that at least 650 million of those are sports fans, with another 200 million on its picture-sharing platform Instagram.

“Facebook is a phenomenal place to reach large audiences and we are now looking into and testing the possibility of actually broadcasting live sports content. It’s going to be a huge learning curve for us, for broadcasters, media companies, the leagues, because it’s not telephones, it’s different. It’s interactive, it’s social, it’s not a one-way conversation,” he added.

“So these are the things that we’re trying to work together with the leagues and gain their feedback on data and consumption so that we can understand what we can build in the future.”

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