Twitter is an ingenious way for professional athlete's to promote themselves, their products, and to keep the world abreast with their current happenings. For some athelete's however, Twitter can spell major trouble. It's almost an everyday topic on ESPN or any other sports broadcasts. For example, after Osama Bin Laden was killed Rashard Mendenhall tweeted, "What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…” He went on to announce his distrust in the government when he next tweeted, “We’ll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style” and then “I’m not convinced he was even behind the attacks we have really seen no evidence to prove it other than the gov telling us.” Mendenhall received much disapproval with his comments. The owner of the Steeler's, Mendenhall's team, tweeted thereafter that it is hard to comprehend his comments and that the Steeler's as an organization is proud of the military's accomplishments. Mendenhall however, is not the first, or only, and definitely won't be the last professional athlete to get in trouble over Twitter posts. Larry Johnson, a former Chiefs player, is another great example. Johnson tweeted after an aggravating loss to the Charger's and ended up getting into a heated argument with a fan. After several tweets back-and-forth, Johnson made a homophobic slur in one of his comments to the upset fan. The league and the Chiefs organization were outraged! Johnson was fined $213,000 and was later released from the team.
When placed in the right hands Twitter can be an outstanding tool for professional athlete's to promote themselves and their products. Tweeting is an excellent way for them to keep the public's interest and to keep them fresh on their mind. Twitter is an athlete's PR department's nightmare however, in the right hands can be marketing gold.
http://2thepointmusic.com/2thepointblog/2011/05/04/twitter-trouble/
http://www.thegrio.com/sports/why-twitter-spells-trouble-for-some-pro-athletes.php?page=1
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ReplyDeleteI actually remember reading another blog a while back about how many athletes had put their teams in awkward positions by stupid/inappropriate tweets. I believe many teams have adopted a rule that forbids their players to tweet or use any social media website 2 hours before or after a game. My question is--does this infringe on the rights of the players/and is it fair that the players' individual postings reflect on the team? Of course, for a couple a million a year, I'd probably be pretty open to having my rights infringed upon for a couple of hours.
ReplyDeleteI think althletes should be able to have a twitter account, but they need to realize everthing that they say is being watched and may be posted on Sportscenter. They just need to be responsible when they post
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