As we prepare for a new season of football, the NFL is realizing that it’s entered the Twitter age:
Thousands of fans gathered in Ashburn last week for the opening of Redskins training camp, separated from their oversize heroes by a long barricade. But when the players left the field and returned to the locker room, fans suddenly had unprecedented access to the players’ thoughts and whims through their laptops and mobile devices.
For the first time, fans aren’t dependent on media reports for training camp updates. Players themselves are divulging certain details, from the humorous to the inconsequential, using Twitter feeds.
“Had a six inch Sub for lunch and now I’m headed back to practice number 2. Ugh,” tight end Chris Cooley told his 12,000-plus followers on the opening day of camp.
Rookie Keith Eloi, trying to make the team as a wide receiver, offered: “Man breaking in new cleats on the first day of practice might be the worst thing to go thru besides a knee injury!!!!”
While athletes have used blogs the past couple of years, they say Twitter is quicker, more accessible and less likely to be filtered through agents, publicists or team officials before publication. From the perspective of both fan and athlete, that’s a good thing. But the National Football League is an image-obsessed league, routinely beset by athletes’ off-the-field antics. Twitter has already grown into a social media tool over which the league has little to no control.
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“I think Twitter has a huge opportunity for football players in particular to break out of the helmet and become a person over and above some number out on the field,” said Kathleen Hessert, a media strategist who has encouraged athletes such as Shaquille O’Neal and Danica Patrick to Twitter. “Twitter is clearly becoming not only the technology du jour, and frankly, seeing as much success as athletes have had with it touching fans and creating new fans, I think anybody who doesn’t look at it in the NFL is really just closing their eyes to reality.”
Already, some players are testing the new medium, and testing the limits of the NFL’s patience:
On Friday, San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman punched into his Blackberry: “Coach said we cant tweet in the blding so i called my lawyer and found a lupo [loophole] in that contract…tweeting outside yeaaaaa.”
It’s an extension of an anticipated showdown between Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco (formerly Chad Johnson) and the league. Last month, Ochocinco floated the idea that he would Twitter from the sidelines during regular season games.
The league sent out word almost immediately that it has a pre-existing rule barring the use of mobile devices from the bench area. Ochocinco, who has nearly 79,000 followers, immediately responded on his Twitter page: “Damn NFL and these rules, I am going by my own set of rules, I ain’t hurting nobody or getting in trouble, I am putting my foot down!!”
Outside of a complete ban, which I doubt would actually work, I’m not sure there’s much the NFL can do to either stop or control players who want to communicate with fans directly. So, they’d better embrace it.
