The Social Athlete Bandwagon- Advantage or Disadvantage?

by Jessica Cruz

With the emergence of social media as a popular communication tool, it has given athletes new opportunities to engage with their fans. Things tend to work in a few different ways when it comes to athletes and social media. On one hand, social media provides athletes the opportunity to interact with their fans. Fans can now become close with their favorite athletes in many possible ways. A retweet on Twitter can be the next autograph without having to be physically there. A mention or shout out on Facebook can make any fans day.  This has given fans a real one-on-one experience with the athletes, especially for those who live in different countries. An athlete such as NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal is an example of an athlete who uses social media for the benefit of his fans. With more than 8 million followers on twitter, Shaquille has been giving clues to where he put autographed sneakers or game tickets for his fans to find. 

However, using social media has its challenges. Not only does social media allow athletes to communicate with fans, it also allows them to express their opinions. And sometimes those opinions are not taken so lightly. Social media has brought athletes in a controversial spotlight. After NBA player Jason Collins came out as homosexual the reaction people were mainly positive, but for Miami Dolphins’ Mike Wallace he was less supportive of the NBA star. Wallace sent out a tweet on his reaction.

Image from www.complexmag.ca

His tweet sparked controversial attention by what many people were saying that his tweet was homophobic. Wallace later deleted his tweet and explained in a tweet, “I’m not bashing anybody don’t have anything against anyone I just don’t understand it.” And added, “Never said anything was right or wrong I just said I don’t understand!! Deeply sorry for anyone that I offended.”

Controversial tweets like Mike Wallace’s brings up an important lesson into why athletes should be careful of what they post because it will reflect their image not only out in public but also when they are out on the field, ice rink or basketball court.

Adelson, Eric (2012). Twitter 2012: How athletes have used social media to become the media.
Retrieved February 28, 2014, from http://sports.yahoo.com/news/twitter-2012--how-athletes-have    -used-social-media-to-become-the-media-164755022.html

Hahn, J. Duaine (2013). The most controversial athletes on twitter. Retrieved February 28, 2014, from http://www.complexmag.ca/tech/2013/05/the-most-controversial-athletes-on-twitter/mike-wallace

Pickering, Ben (2013). Athletes and social media: untapped goldmine or PR landmine?. Retrieved February 28, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-pickering/athletes-and-social-media_b_3082184.html

End of forums – Interacting with sports fans

Since online forums have limited interaction with users for all sports, the use of other platforms that provide more user collaboration like Facebook and twitter provide fans with more than just a regular word conversation with other users.

NASCAR has started to embrace the use of online social platforms. Fans are also giving feedback through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook including changes to qualifying and race formats announced for the year.

NASCAR fans across the United States and around the world have discovered that they have a way with interacting with one another on race weekends and other events.

A great example of fans using social media platforms:

In 2012, Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski had tweeted photographs of a burning jet dryer during the lengthy red flag stoppage of the race (it gained over 100,000 new followers within the hours) and it helped catapult NASCAR's social media footprint into national prominence.

Margolis, B. (2014, March 6). Social Media's Role in Making NASCAR's changes for 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2014, from Bleacherreport: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1984234-social-medias-role-in-making-nascars-changes-for-2014

End of Forums in sports

By Raman Khinda

Forums are a dying breed of the internet?

Before the use of such famous platforms like Facebook and twitter, forums were essential to the internet in providing a social online discussion and message board where users can start and hold various conversations. Forums had single conversations also known as threads and discussions which included threads could contain sub-forums that each have their own topic of discussion.

Although forums may have its advantages such as ease of access, general awareness with online users and self-sufficiency, they do fall short when compared to other types of social media platforms. Users online expect quicker responses and it may take forever for a comment on a forum to be responded to, on the other hand the amount of reading based on many of the forums may take hours depending on the topic of interest. So the main question lurking, are forums dying? Are they needed?

With the emergence of Facebook and Twitter, sadly it is very difficult to possibly think of using forums anymore. Whatever forums generated in terms of sharing opinions and comments could now be down on bigger platforms. The online forum has a sense of community but as time goes on no one really has the time anymore to read through all the topics.

RyJek. (2011). Forums: Precursor to Social Media. Retrieved February 15, 2014, from 1stwebdesigner: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/are-forums-dying/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJpyjeX3gso