Dan Reed, head of sports partnerships at Facebook, has said that the social media platform has no plans to bid for sports-media rights, despite the growth of its Facebook Live service.
The live streaming service enables users to view events through their Facebook profile. Earlier this month, the Brazilian Basketball League became the first sports organisation in the country to stream games via Facebook Live.
However, according to the marketing news service the Drum, Reed (pictured) does not believe that Facebook will begin “actively bidding” for sports rights and will instead look at other ways to monetise the Facebook Live service.
Reed added: “We’re in the midst of experimenting with a lot of different models but that’s our goal. There’s been a lot of interest in utilising this platform [Facebook Live] given the reach, distribution and engagement that we’re seeing.
“Live videos generally give 10 times more comments than traditional VOD on Facebook. That’s of great interest for publishers and we’re really hitting upon formats that really work to help them grow their audience.”