The Finger Wag – Athletes using Twitter and Social Media to their Disadvantage

BigMay42

(Sean May)

would it have been wrong if MJ woulda just walked up there said thank you and walked off? did he gain anything by the speech? On 12:59 AM Sep 12th 2009 from Tweeterena

Let me tell you about myself. I am in my late twenties. I recently got a new boss who is younger than me. I never played an organized sport past sophomore year of high school (tennis). I once tried to play basketball at least one day a week, this lasted less than three months. I am white. I love basketball. I live in a world where it is myself and 10 other white guys left who love basketball. I even plan on reading Bill Simmons’ manifesto on the sport. When I ask a co-worker if they saw a great finish to an NBA game all I get back is odd stares.

I am obsessed with Michael Jordan.

I had every jersey growing up, the red one, the black, the USA number 9 one, the white one, the 45 one he wore for a cup of coffee. I even had an authentic North Carolina jersey. My mother bought me the Carolina blue Air Jordan sneakers every year. I looked around and couldn’t find a picture of this but one summer when I was a young lad I even had 23 shaved into the back of my hair, representing my hero. Some of my fondest memories of growing up was sitting with my mom or grandmother and watching the Bulls.

My question is, if Jordan came out into the NBA today, would any child think like this?

From all accounts Jordan was an A-class asshole. He gave Steve Kerr a black eye (it could be said Steve deserved this), he ridiculed teammates, called out the organization, publicly lobbied against Tony Kukoc and didn’t want to bring in Scottie Pippen. He gambled. He womanized. He hung out with Charles Oakley. All of this in today’s world would have him listed as a horrible human being. LeBron James can’t even say he might be thinking about leaving Cleveland someday without it leading off SportsCenter. Let’s not even get into Kobe at this point.

I am not going to discuss his hall of fame speech, you can find many other points of view on this if you look for it. I will only offer this, the guy is who he is. He is ultra-competitive to a fault, I think most athletes are. He still perceivesanything slightly negative that happened to him as a personal affront – this is what made him great at basketball and horrible at personal relationships. If nothing else, the speech was truly him.

The point of this little post is that the main difference between then and now is access. 24 hours of sports reporting wasn’t in everyone’s homes. I didn’t even have cable back then. Michael Jordan never had a facebook or a twitter account. Could you imagine if he did? By the time he left practice someone would have leaked that he just called Kwame Brown a “flaming faggot” (he did this once – I somehow doubt Jordan was the first sport’s personality to do this but it was Jordan so it eventually made it into a book) and he would have to have responded – knowing Jordan’s disdain for the media then he probably would have just made a statement over twitter.

This is where things get odd in the new world of interacting, athlete’s are forced to keep themselves out of the public eye because of the media but they turn to twitter and facebook and AIM. They try to interact with their fans without using an espn or an official league channel. I think this could be a great thing for the fan. This is why you see the NFL and Tennis making rules against Twitter. They are scared. Imagine if Tiger Woods just said screw you to the PGA, took all their fines for refusing to talk to the media and just used twitter or facebook to get his views out. Social media can bring the athlete and the fan closer than ever.

I hope it doesn’t ruin too many young kids dream when they realize their hero is just a normal guy.