Twitter & Sport

14/12/2009

Twitter & Sport

14/12/2009

Twitter & Sport

“I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game featuring

you, while singing your own song in a new commercial, starring you, broadcast during the Superbowl, in a

game that you are winning, and I will not sleep until that happens.”

Jerry Maguire

Ari Fleischer, former White House Secretary, says of sport and twitter, "On offense, they [athletes] directly

communicate with their fan base, and they can make their fan base grow. Defense, for those times, for

those few athletes where something goes wrong, it's helpful to have a fan base that rallies around you."1

Rallying around causes is something that resonates with sports fans who flood social networking sites for

similar reasons that they go to sports venues: to share in the experience of a common interest.

Social networks serve as digital extensions, not only of pre and post match pub discussion, but also of

home stadia - bringing disparate fans together under the common cause. More than ever teams are

becoming global entities, not confined to one geographic area, and we see global rights owners like the

NFL (1,350,446 followers) and NBA (1,602,360 followers) using utilities like Twitter to give fans a platform

to express themselves in a NFL and NBA-friendly environment.

Services such as discussion and topic grouping tools Tweet Ups and Tweetzone & seating utility

Twitterville2

as well as events such as announcing draft selections via the Official NFL Twitter feed (which

hit 234,000 followers), mean that being a fan has never been so egalitarian an experience.

Even renowned those cynical of the traditional press have betrayed personal soft spots for Twitter. Lance

Armstrong (2,218,175 followers) used his Twitter page to announce the birth of his child, and Shaq O‟Neal

(2,520,075 followers) will often plug his favoured charity, tweeting „with the unbridled zeal of a twelve

year old.‟3

Others, including the likes of the Washington Capitals‟ ace Alex Ovechkin and Milwaukee Bucks‟

forward Charlie Villanueva, have tweeted mid-game to engage their audience. This is all great content for

fans, but this isn‟t true of all celebrity Twitter activity: Michael Phelps‟ page, with over 40,000 followers, is

a worrying sign for the Twitter purist – those 40,000 are still awaiting his first tweet.

Danica Patrick, an IndyCar driver, was interviewed earlier this year on the subject of Twitter: „I just don't

get it.… I don't think it's healthy or safe.‟4

Health and safety is going to be a subject close to the heart of

any driver and IndyCar drivers like Danica aren‟t apt at u-turns, but when cash is on the line it seems even

the most ardent ethical views can be turned.

Tissot have paid Danica not only to create an account but to use it to reference the watch company to her

follower base of 56,738. Of course, there‟s nothing wrong with making a quick buck here and there, but

surely Tissot could use their association with Patrick in a more creative way than spamming her loyal

followers with marketing messages? Have her Tweet while on a shoot, or posing in front of the logo but by

intruding on the personalisation erodes the equity of the personality – Tissot may be slowly putting out its

own fire.

Tweeting on behalf of sponsors, as well as branding on pages, is not unusual but there is a fine balance

between what‟s useful and informative, and spam. UK tennis sensation Andy Murray will Tweet what he‟s

thinking, what he‟s eating, and what he thinks of Andy Roddick‟s sweat-ridden baseball cap, but will also

1 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/athletes-turn-to-twitter-for-their-own-spin-

1657482.html 2 A Tweet Up is an in-person get together on game day, allowing individuals the chance to get behind the scenes

exposure, souvenirs and sit in ‘Twitterville’, a specially reserved area for Tweeters to watch the game. The TweetZone analyses and filters the American Football conversation occurring on Twitter 3 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/sports/basketball/20shaq.html

4 http://bit.ly/8w9nat

14/12/2009

Twitter & Sport

include reference to a purpose-built „Andy Murray Radical Messenger‟ site, set up on his sponsor HEAD‟s

website to promote their (and his) new racket.5

Crucially, and perhaps most attractively to HEAD, Murray began using Twitter for his fans. Now that he

has the trusty ear of his 100,000+ following, he‟s more valuable than ever to current and potential

sponsors to the extent that HEAD have been able to begin a new conversation with his followers via his

feed. Murray, like Patrick, is a single-stream, uncluttered, instant marketing channel. Yet while both have

ended up at the same commercial junction, Murray is venturing down a more sophisticated road.

However, some UK athletes could learn from Phelps‟ stance of silence. The temptation to tweet

controversial points of view has landed footballers Darren Bent6

, Joey Altidore and cricketer Tim Bresnan in

trouble with their clubs. The Premier League forced FootyTweets developer Ollie Parsley to remove club

logos from his site and shut down part of his service which used Twitter to provide live match updates for

a variety of clubs.

In the US, following „in play‟ tweets, The NFL was the first to outlaw players from using social media from

90 minutes to kick off until all post match interviews have been concluded. The NBA soon followed suit,

with a 45 minute rule, and then the NHL with 30 minutes. Twitter warning signs have also appeared at the

US Tennis Open, much to the frustration of Andy Roddick, who called the notice – which reminded players,

“of some of the dangers posted by Twittering as it relates to the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program Rules”7

–

“lame”8

.

Roddick has a point. Why should athletes be banned from communicating with their fans during these

periods? Prior to events is tenuously understandable as a Tweet before tee-off could influence gamblers to

change their bets before the odds reflect it. But when it comes to post-match interviews, it seems utterly

archaic to refuse the right to communicate en masse with 140 characters just so journalists can get their

quotes first: quotes that‟ll be tweeted and retweeted anyway. Anything that engages an audience is a good

thing; engagement builds affinity, it builds relationships, and it builds trust.

Any sports marketer knows that athletes are assets. A good sports marketer knows why: the fans. A

happy fan is a valuable fan, an engaged fan is an invaluable fan. Keep the fans, and the athletes will

maintain their value. If it‟s good for the fans, it has to be good for the sport. We only hopes rights owners

and athletes alike start to embrace Twitter for what it could be and what it should be: a means to bring

stars and fans together.

Sam Reid and Lyndon Morant

5 A messenger service set up by Head, with information on the new YouTek Radical Pro racket

6 Darren Bent warned about his conduct after insulting Chairman Daniel Levy, blaming him for holding up his proposed

move to Sunderland 7 http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/32603366/ns/sports-tennis/

8 http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/32603366/ns/sports-tennis/