Category:
Antonio Cromartie fined
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ESPN
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NFL
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The NFL Chick
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twitter
As you guys and gals know, I love me some Twitter. It's one of the best inventions since white sliced bread as far as I'm concerned. With twitter you can read folks thoughts and interact with your fave celebs/ athletes, while getting the latest breaking news, all rolled in one.
But with the growing popularity of Twitter, comes the Twitter haters. There are some that have taken certain steps to show that they don't like the intimate tweets made regarding... anything.
Case in point #1- Antonio Cromartie Fined
The Chargers CB was recently fined $2500 for tweeting about "nasty food" at the Chargers facility during training camp.
Come on now..... How many times have you had a potluck or even have a cafeteria at work and came across some food that was down right disgusting??? When you talk to your friends at the end of the day, you say to them, "Man... today I had some food that was nasty as hell..." and continue to tell the story. What Cromartie did was no different. He was speaking his mind.
Now, I follow Cromartie (click here to add him to your follow list), and he doesn't say off the wall things often, so you know he's upset at this point. Hell, I know I would. Because of his fine, last night Cromartie tweeted this after a practice:
"man we had a grt practice 2day The defense flow around we made a lot of plays every1 knows I have 2 watch wht i say now cause i got fined"
LOL dude is scared as hell to say anything related to his job. He probably can't fart and tweet about it without being fined. First the NFL cracked down on tweeting during games (which I can understand. If I'm a coach or an owner, you get paid to play, everything else comes after your play on the field), now this?!
Case in point #2- ESPN's Tweeting Restrictions
So ESPN has added restrictions on what their personalities can and cannot tweet about. Hmmmmm.... To see the new guidelines, click here. So from here on out, if you follow an ESPN analyst, such as Chris Mortensen, you'll get minimal info and probably get teasers leading you to a link to their website to get the story in its entirety.
For both situations, this is some bull hockey, if I ever saw any. Twitter is a great marketing tool that allows you to gain a new fan base, so that they will actually go to the website you write for, or support the team the athlete plays for. For whatever reason, the NFL and ESPN sees Twitter as a threat, and to a point, I can understand. From a league standpoint, the thought of players "airing out dirty laundry" isn't appealing to them. And from a media standpoint, giving away too much info on Twitter when we want the traffic on our website is bad business. But this is too much. Writers and players are being held in Twitter jail, because it's been seen as a threat and not an ally.
If anything, Twitter should be your friend, not the enemy. Gaining new fans should make anyone happy. New viewers is potential $$$ so why it is looked down upon is beyond me. It's another form of media.
News flash to the NFL and ESPN, it's 2009. Get with the times. Twitter isn't going anywhere for a while, so it's time join modern day media. Stop this foolishness before you can't turn back.
Yo Chad Johnson is TOAST!
I'm not gonna even bring him up, that's another beast to tackle LOL
The NFL should've fined the head of catering! :o)
And ESPN is just being weird... and wrong. Twitter is a high-speed medium that's a great complement to the somewhat-slower-speed blog/news website to not only serve news but also discuss.
This is the big problem though with ESPN and, to a lesser extent, the NFL. Twitter is seen as "just another broadcasting channel". The true potential is untapped,ignored and/or feared.
i see this sad development as a far more insidious plot. espn fears that their talent (writers, anchors, analysts) will become large beyond the heirarchy that espn assigns them to.
skip bayless may be the star now, but what if jemele hill surpasses him in number of followers? who gets the permanent seat on "1st and 10" now?
but i think espn's primary fear is that these followERS will evolve into a followING. if the twitter community feels connected to the talent, then the danger is that talent leaving for another network and taking his/her followING along, away from espn.
it's kind of like when a high school coach makes the decision which player is going to be featured (the kid's mom is on the school board, etc) and the last thing he wants is his benchwarmer showing everybody at practice that he has just as much star power....look at all those people who come to practice to watch me since they can't see me play during the game.
there's a point to be made about espn keeping news releases directed back to the network filter, but i think this twitter policy is also intended to reinforce the status quo; keep talent heirarchy in place.
thanks,
afro d
I agree with the NFL and EPSN. They are employers and every employer has rules. Just like i might make a smart remark about my emploer, I certainly won't put it on the internet and air out out dirty laundry.
However I do think the Antonio situation was excessive, I think they were just trying to make an example out of him.
kennethlim ITA with that assessment. Whether it's far or not depends on the person you ask
Afro, wow what a great way to think bigger. Great perspective and I'm glad you mentioned that. And actually that makes sense
Connie3, I stated earlier I understood the down side to it and see why they see it that way. But I'm all for pushing my brand and I think Twitter helps more than harms that. I also agree agree about Cromartie's punishment, that is too much for such a little comment
Damn they put the shackles on them boys foreal! I feel where they come from. But ESPN is like a jealous lover who wants to control the other party in the relationship. It always ends bad when you try to control people and in ESPN's case, their information.
Imagine if they let "The Sports Guy" tweet with freedom. He is already hilarious, and all he has to do is plug his ESPN Page 2 column a few times and their page views will sky rocket. I guess they don't want it. Success that is.