The second screen for live sports. The app that fans are checking and refreshing while watching the game.
Which social media network comes to mind?
It’s likely Twitter is on the tip of your tongue, but as you may have seen Facebook is taking another swing at being sports fans’ second screen, with the launch of Venue. ‘The live event companion experience,’ as the headline of their blog announcing the app states. ‘[Venue] brings passionate fans and expert commentators together to experience live events in a new interactive way,’ they promise.
The first event to go live in Venue was the Supermarket Heroes 500, a NASCAR race held at Bristol Motor Speedway this past Sunday (May 31). The ‘expert’ host was NASCAR Twitter personality @nascarcasm (he also has ~ 45,000 Instagram followers, but over 180,000 on Twitter). His Twitter feed is full of the interaction and commentary that Facebook’s product team wanted to host their first ‘venue.’
Below you’ll find a look at the Venue app as it played out during the race, along with some commentary from my experience hanging out in it during event. There were also a couple of occasions when @nascarcasm asked for product feedback from all of us users (even explicitly stating that Facebook’s product team was listening). It looked like between 800-1,000 users were in the venue together during the race.
Overall, the MVP (minimum viable product) has the foundation of a unique offering. I don’t think it is meant to replace Twitter, but could be more like a combination of Twitch and IG Live/IG Stories, with some WhatsApp genes in there, too. There was only one ‘venue’ available for this race, but the idea is there could be multiple venues across multiple events, primarily with ‘expert commentators’ (based on their description), but after this review you can decide for yourself how it could evolve (and even if it has a future at all).
Come into the ‘Venue’ along with me:
Getting Started
These are the three introductory screens to introduce new users to app prior to getting to the registration screen. One must either sign in or create an account, which requires entering age and email address. Notably, there was not an option to sign in with your Facebook, Instagram, or phone number/WhatsApp. One also then selected their @ name, typing into an open field following the ‘@’symbol. You can also see the App Store entry below for further insight into how the team is describing their app right now.
Home Screen
The home screen showed all live venues, in this case just the one was there for the NASCAR race. It’ll be interesting to consider how this home screen evolves as more venues are live (or still accessible after an event has ended) concurrently, and how the app may recommend live venues to a user based on their engagement and friends/follows/followers.
Inside the Venue
There was a live scoreboard showing the current standings and the lap the race was on. The live content provided was very limited (which fans pointed out), but that’s also kind of the point. Venue isn’t trying to be a way to watch and consume the game, it’s trying to be your ‘live companion.’
The only one who could post in the vertically-moving timeline was the host, @nascarcasm, and he was typically reacting to notable events in the race, such as a caution, crash, lead/position change, or end of a stage. A piece of feedback from fans was wanting to be able to ‘comment’ and ‘like’ the stuff @nascarcasm was posting.
There was periodic interaction, with intermittent opportunities for fans to ‘chat’ and for @nascarcasm to post polls. You can see the countdown clock, which was 60 seconds for polls (from what I saw) and 285 seconds for chats. Fans seemed to enjoy the polls, and it was a cool touch that – after submitting one’s own vote – users could see the ratio of responses move in real-time. It looked like, at least at the moment, polls were limited to two options. Users saw polls from three different sources during the race — the event itself the Supermarket Heroes 500, the host, and, in this inaugural event at least, the app itself, Venue.
The chats were fast-moving with the countdown clock and were more of a passing interactive element than a key feature of the venue. Though fans certainly asked for a way to chat continuously and even to form their own group chats within the app. Chats were in response to an event or prompt from the host or a note from the event (as you can see in one of the examples below). You can see the arrow symbol in the chat (and in @nascarcasm’s posts), which functions the same as the ‘reply’ function in WhatsApp. You can also see the expert’s chats are highlighted in red. Once the timer is up the chat is closed, but one can go back in to review it and even scroll back up the timeline to see previous chats, i.e. chats in response to events or specific prompts from the host. As users scroll up the timeline to revisit old posts, too, the scoreboard and lap number adjusted to show the state at that point in the timeline.
Multiple times during the race, including after the finish, the Venue app opened a chat asking fans for feedback. The majority had a positive response – some of the commentary I gleaned included [paraphrasing real statements]:
- Not as good as Twitter during the live event
- Want a place to continuously chat with each other throughout the event
- Fans want to be able to like and comment on the host’s posts on the timeline during the race (instead of only when he started a limited time chat)
- Better than Facebook Groups live chat
- One fan made the logical suggestion of letting fans start their own ‘venues’ on which to host others
- There was a call for video or highlights
- Complaints about the dearth of live standings and a lag in that scoreboard updating during the race
Other Notes
- It’s going to be difficult to be the primary second screen without photos and highlights. Even though the expectation is fans in the venue are watching the live event, I think being able to watch and re-watch highlights while discussing them is important. Facebook may be limited by content rights, while rights holders eagerly live-post video throughout the race on Twitter.
- As one of the fans mentioned, and something logical to consider is fans creating their own interactive, and perhaps customizable, ‘venues’ to enjoy with their friends or build their own communities. There may be some synergy with Facebook’s recent new app – Rooms, a video chat room app, with venues being a room to experience live sports events alongside friends. Different experts and ‘everyday’ people can also start venues for specific communities – an interactive version of the megacast ESPN has tried for major events, trying to target different types of viewing audiences with a unique viewing experience. Gambling may have a role to play, too, eventually.
- For fans accustomed to the speed of Twitter during a live sports event, Venue feels like going from an all-out green NASCAR lap to something even slower than a caution lap. (Yes, I love my sports analogies). That makes it less taxing to keep up with, but there remains something special about a Twitter timeline ‘blowing up’ during a big moment in the game/race/match. Perhaps that’s where Venue would have a contained chat box pop up for those moments. But the long-ish periods of nothing new in the timeline are a deterrent from making Venue the always-on second screen.
- There was only the one venue to choose from for this race, so it remains to be seen how the app experience will be when many more are available. With the venue more of a one-way experience, with interaction opportunities intermittently.
- The timed chats and polls give a sense of urgency to the experience, making one check in regularly, even if the pace of the timeline is slow overall. The app sends timely real-time alerts for interaction opportunities – chats and polls the only options for now, which helps fans to not miss one. The alerts were helpful and really important for users to have turned on for this reason.
- At least for now, there’s no way to share the venue externally and/or invite others to join. There didn’t appear to a way to access an external link, let alone share to one of Facebook’s apps. This will almost certainly change as the product evolves.
There is nothing like experiencing live sports together and social media has been an integral companion now for years. Facebook has had trials over the years of trying to create a product offering to complement live sports. Now they’re hoping Venue can be the solution fans need to to complement their experience while they’re watching a game.
Digital and Social Media Sports 