MusicNews

As Alex Morgan prepared to take the field Saturday for her team’s National Women’s Soccer League season opener, the Orlando Pride forward posted an update to her Facebook page: “Orlando Pride season opener! First half action live.”

Accompanying the text was a broadcast of the game, beamed through Facebook with an assist from the platform’s Live API — complete with professionally shot video, cuts and graphics. It was everything you’d expect to see on TV, except this time it was on Facebook.

The broadcast was Facebook’s first live stream of a professional sports event. It reached an audience of 273,249 unique viewers in the first half, according to Facebook. A second separate live video of the game’s second half reached 348,944 unique viewers, also according to Facebook. The game reached an estimated 554,000 unique viewers in all, according to Cycle, the media company that orchestrated the stream.

In comparison, a National Hockey League playoff game between the Nashville Predators and The Anaheim Ducks pulled in 413,000 average viewers Saturday, according to Nielsen. Nielsen’s average viewer number is calculated differently from Facebook’s unique viewers though, so the comparison isn’t completely analogous.

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