On January 21, Facebook released their new real-time place for Facebook users to experience sports in real-time. Similar to hashtags on Twitter, this new place is dedicated strictly to trending sports topics and shares new posts immediately. It is a hub for sports fans to discuss anything and everything sports-related, as well as talk as much trash on each other’s teams, in a sports-centered community on Facebook.

This will be a great opportunity for sports networks and journalists to jump in on the conversation and add their thoughts to trending sport topics. They’ll be able to create commentary in a sports-specific atmosphere that is made up of 650 million sports fans. Talk about publicity. Thoughts and opinions from the top sports journalists and channels will be funneled throughout the Stadium, giving exclusive opportunities for brands to shine.

Facebook users can quickly click on the news and journalist’s pages to jump out of the Sports Stadium and into a Business or Figure Facebook Page instantly to get more information and follow a new page. The hope in this type of marketing is to increase exposure for Business Pages and connect fans with pages they may not have found before. Plus, they’ll be able to comment more intimately with larger sports companies and newscasts to feel even more apart of the game than ever before.

Play-By-Play Coverage

A great feature of the Sports Stadium on Facebook will be the play-by-play action covered. As big plays are made, fans can post immediately and have discussions about the latest play with their friends and people all over the world. Although the sports fan audience is in the hundreds of millions for Facebook, the Sports Stadium can offer a more intimate environment for sports fans to connect than over other real-time social media accounts like Twitter.

To help balance the conversation, Facebook will provide actual game information, not just a feed of fan’s hips and hoorays. You can discover where to find the next game on television, as well as live scores, statistics and play-by-play details in Sports Stadium. In the blog post about the new Sports Stadium, Facebook described the hub as, “A second-screen experience that we hope makes watching the broadcast even better. You can get to Facebook Sports Stadium by searching for a game, and we’ll surface new ways to get there as the product evolves.”

Who Can Access the Stadium?

So far, Facebook has only rolled the Stadium out to iPhone users and for American football, basketball, and soccer games. Facebook plans to expand to more users and different types of sports in the coming weeks. This will be a really valuable tool for businesses as the Stadium grows and expands to more specific types of sport industries that specializes in niche products.

Timing couldn’t have been better for this launch, and I’m sure Facebook is aware of this. As you’re watching the big game Sunday, February 7, make sure to log into Facebook and check the Sports Stadium out for yourself.