Teenagers and grown adults celebrated a triumphant moment of growing independence yesterday as they learned they’d no longer need their parents’ cable television login credentials to watch the UEFA Champions League online. A monumental deal between Facebook Inc. and Fox Sports will see the page livestream two matches on Tuesday and two on Wednesday throughout the group stage, four matches from the round of 16 and four quarterfinal games during the 2017-18 tournament.
Half of the matches will come with English commentary and the other half will be in Spanish. You’ll use the Fox Sports Facebook page for English commentary and Fox Deportes for Spanish.
FOX Sports teams with @facebook for 2017-18 @ChampionsLeague schedule: https://t.co/UdY0TQQHu3
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) June 27, 2017
It’s expected that the marquee matchups will remain only available via television broadcast, but Facebook will give Fox Sports another massive platform for the other games.
The financial terms of the agreement haven’t been disclosed, but for Facebook, it’s all about enticing advertisers to make some killer banner ads that'll entice you to click and shop after monitoring your online history closely.
Facebook also figures to rack up trillions of interactions (likes, comments, sad faces, angry faces) which would be extremely neat for Mark Zuckerberg — who knows, these interactions might serve as currency in the future.
This announcement also marked a landmark day for notorious keyboard warriors across the country. The cave-dwelling troglodytes will now be hard pressed to outperform, outflame and outspam their social chat counterparts as the platform will welcome thousands of American users that are #HalaMadrid, #VISCABARCA, #AnyoneButUnited, etc. For everyone else, rest assured that you can simply close the social chat feature and enjoy world-class football for free.