Facebook Hopes You’ll Watch the Super Bowl With Them

The Seahawks and Patriots aren’t the only ones getting their head into the big game this weekend. Facebook is pulling out all the stops in creating a go-to destination for viewers and fans during the Super Bowl. The question of “where you’re going to watch the game,” just got a little more complicated.

Much like that NFL timeline on Twitter, Facebook will direct users to a designated hub for a live feed of reactions from everyone using a Super Bowl hashtag, links to NBC.com to stream the game, photos, videos, and posts from the NFL, NBC, the players and teams. Of course, live scores and play by plays will update in real time. Already, the page is flush with predictions and news, posts from the teams, and user-uploaded clips of Louis C.K. on Deflategate and videos of Marshawn Lynch repeating “I’m just here so I don’t get fined,” twenty five times. I don’t know that any half-time show can beat all the news circus that’s preceded this particular game.

Facebook writes in a blog post that they hope the page will “bring people, athletes and journalists together in one ongoing conversation.” Dan Reed, Head of Global Sports Partnerships for Facebook, elaborates in a statement that Facebook “want[s] to incorporate the social experience of going to a game into the ‘lean-back’ experience of watching on the couch at home.” One thing that Facebook has is a space for a lot of context at once. Videos and highlights are easier to watch on the platform than on Twitter or anywhere else. Or is that just me?

Facebook will also be selling ads based on what people are talking about in real-time during the game. Finally. They’ll be auto-playing videos that show up in your newsfeed, triggered by keywords, depending on what’s trending. According to Reuters:

At last year’s Super Bowl, marketers on Facebook could target ads to segments of members based on their likes, profiles and demographic information. Facebook has introduced real-time targeting features since then, and this year the social network, with 155 million daily users in the United States and Canada, will customize audience clusters that advertisers can target in real time during the game.

Viewers can join in on the Facebook conversation by clicking on any related Super Bowl hashtag or updating their status with “watching Super Bowl XLIX.”