Facebook Teams With Fox Sports For Social Game Coverage

Facebook and Fox Sports have teamed up to bring a new level of social sports coverage. Under the partnership Facebook feedback and engagement will be more deeply integrated with traditional broadcasts.

The new program is called Social Sidelines and it will first roll out on Saturday as Fox Sports covers the Hawaii and USC college football game. After testing out the new platform Facebook will integrate the program with MLB, NBA and NFL games.

Potential users can find information through the Fox Sports Facebook Page.

In a release on Thursday Nick Grudin, Facebook’s chief of community partnerships and on-air integrations said:

“Across Facebook, we see sporting events inspire passionate conversations, and team allegiances create strong communities. Facebook-Fox Sports Social Sidelines blends the live sports TV viewing experience with the social activity that’s already happening.”

Part of the new program will monitor social media chatter to determine which teams and players are generating the most buzz. On the Fox Sports Facebook page the company will showcase the “top 10 buzzed-about teams” of each week.

The program will also crowd-source answers to relevant questions and will feature fan-of-the-week contests.

Along with the partnership Fox Sports will also act as an editor for Facebook.com/Sports.

As the program is tested users are likely to witness changes that provide better social feedback and more new features that bring Fox Sports coverage to Facebook and the social networks features to the popular national sports network.

Do you think Fox Sports and Facebook will create a worthwhile social sports partnership?