Facebook’s New Watch Tab To Include Sport Shows
Facebook has announced it will introduce Watch, a new platform to watch shows with episodes of live or recorded content.
Watch will include sports and sports-related video on-demand, with Facebook partnering with sports properties on Facebook Live streaming.
Currently, Major League Baseball (MLB) has this season launched a weekly Friday night game streamed on Facebook, and Univision Deportes has deals with MLS and Liga MX to have a number of live matches on Facebook. All will be part of the new Watch platform.
In addition, the Golden State Warriors will have ‘Champions Rewind’ an eight-part video series with highlights from the past season on the road to the NBA championship. Other content comes from Facebook’s partnership with the World Surf League, and shows from MLS, WNBA and Whistle Sports.
The feature will let users discover videos from outside of their feed more easily, create watchlists, and a way to follow shows.
Watch will replace the videos tab within the Facebook mobile app, which launched last year. Whilst the video tab in the Facebook app already has video content, Watch will make it easier to discover treanding content, or videos friends are watchings, and enables user to save specific shows into a watchlist that will send notifications when new episodes are added.
Instead of providing a simple stream of video content, as the Videos tab currently does, Watch organizes content into sections like “most talked about” or “what’s making people laugh” (based on how many people have clicked the ‘haha’ emoji reaction on the video).
Director of product Daniel Danker, said in a blog post announcing Watch: “Watch is a platform for all creators and publishers to find an audience, build a community of passionate fans, and earn money for their work
In addition to highlighting existing content, Facebook said it was commissioning some shows, including a series by TV host Mike Rowe called Returning the Favor, where he interviews people doing something extraordinary for his community and rewards them.
Watch launches to select users in the US this week before being rolled out to the platform’s two billion users.
