Called Social Sidelines, the implementation will begin on Saturday with Fox Sports' coverage of the college football game between Hawaii and USC. It will then expand to other sports as well, including Major League Baseball, NBA and NFL games. The Fox Sports Facebook Page will serve as the gateway for much of the integration.
“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,” Nick Grudin, Facebook's chief of community partnerships and on-air integrations, said in a press release announcing the move on Thursday.
The partnership will in part use chatter on Facebook to track which teams are sparking the most buzz and gauge fan sentiment. Fox will provide updates on the ten most buzzed-about teams of each week of the season, tap Facebook users to crowd-source answers to relevant questions and run regular fan-of-the-week contests. All of those integrations will then be featured at times on Fox channels.
Fox Sports will also act as a guest editor for the Facebook.com/Sports page during prime-time Saturday college football games, and says personalities including Erin Andrews will be increasingly active on their personal pages throughout the season.