Facebook gets in game with new sports hub

San Francisco: Facebook announced a drive Thursday to be a place for sports with a new online hub for news and sharing on sporting events.

The "Facebook Sports Stadium" will offer live updates of scores, posts from friends and commentators as well as information on where to watch games live.

The new hub will be "a dedicated place to experience sports in real-time with your friends and the world," said product manager Steve Kafka in a blog post.

"With 650 million sports fans, Facebook is the world's largest stadium. People already turn to Facebook to celebrate, commiserate, and talk trash with their friends and other fans..."

The new Sports Stadium is "a place devoted to sports so you can get the feeling you're watching the game with your friends even when you aren't together," he added.

Fans will be able to follow the action with a live play-by-play and add their own comments.

The service is being rolled out for American football games and will soon support other sports around the world like basketball, football and other games. It is available for Facebook on iPhone and will expand to other platforms in the coming weeks, Kafka said.