SportStream teams up with Facebook to serve up sports engagement data

Facebook users love sports. During the World Series, the champion Boston Red Sox drove more than 32 million interactions on the social network by 11 million people. Facebook noted that there were more than 100 million interactions about the NBA Finals, which were won by LeBron James in the Miami Heat. Now, Facebook has teamed with SportStream to make some sense of all the chatter. SportStream yesterday announced the launch of SportsBase, a platform powered by Facebook's Application Programming Interface. With this program, broadcasters and writers can show in real time how fans are discussing the game on Facebook. Facebook has become a bigger player in this kind of data, but more in the entertainment realm. It has opened its data connection to major media partners, who can show Facebook engagement during awards shows and other big events. But now, it seems like Facebook is going after a very active sports fan segment. SportStream points out that with this data, broadcasters can share with viewers the matchups that are being talked about most, or which team is getting the most buzz on Facebook. SportStream summed up its offerings in a blog post: Before our new tool, broadcasters had to manually sort through data around particular sporting events for content. With events like the NFL season kick-off garnering over 20 million likes, comments and shares on Facebook, one sporting event would produce way more content than any organization could sort in a timely and efficient way. Now, sports broadcasters can bring the best, most relevant social data and content around games, teams or athletes on-air without the need for a ton of dedicated resources. While this could be pretty popular for events such as the Super Bowl or World Series, it seems like it could be even more popular internationally. The most vocal sports fans on Facebook don't cheer for the Boston Red Sox or Miami Heat, but FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. According to PageData, eight of the top 10 Facebook pages dedicated to sports teams play association football, not American football. The top sports team — FC Barcelona — has roughly 30 million more Facebook fans than the top American team, the Los Angeles Lakers. # Name Total Likes Daily Growth Weekly Growth 1 FC Barcelona 47,140,358 +18,646 +136,122 2 Real Madrid C.F. 44,360,357 +22,686 +180,411 3 Manchester United 36,804,478 +20,654 +143,367 4 Chelsea Football Club 19,707,690 +9,569 +70,917 5 A.C. Milan 18,111,331 +6,324 +42,294 6 LA Lakers 17,122,532 +4,940 +36,484 7 Arsenal 16,363,577 +13,883 +101,199 8 Liverpool FC 13,379,853 +4,569 +34,384 9 FC Bayern München 9,839,847 +10,016 +71,316 10 Chicago Bulls 9,831,192 +7,120 +55,685 Currently, the most talked about sports team on Facebook is Real Madrid, followed by Manchester United and FC Barcelona. A fan page dedicated to Indian cricketer M.S. Dhoni currently has a PTAT of 1.9 million. If Facebook and SportStream branch out of the main American sports and provide this data for teams with a worldwide following, it could be very valuable data for marketers. Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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SportStream teams up with Facebook to serve up sports engagement data

Justin Lafferty

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Justin Lafferty