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

Here at The Finger Wag we try to ensure everything we write about is actually written by the athlete themselves and not an imposter. I have to break that rule today.

There is no way this Michael Jordan twitter account is real, but I sure as hell wish it was. It would make my man-crush on him a million times worse. Here is a sample:

michaeljordan

(Michael Jordan)

I think I'm done with eating Green peppers. They are the worst pepper, and always make a meal worse. On 1:32 PM May 8th 2010 from web

How true is that?!? I fucking HATE green peppers. I once got a western omlet and it had green peppers in it and I almost threw up! They are the worst!

Here is another wonderfully true statement:

michaeljordan

(Michael Jordan)

Sometimes, I have a week or two when I remember how great pop music in the 80s was. This week is one of those times. On 12:10 PM Apr 13th 2010 from web

And finally, one of my favorites:

michaeljordan

(Michael Jordan)

I had a dream last night about lots of cats and enormous rabbits in a barn. On 2:30 PM Jun 18th 2010 from web

God damn I wish this was him…

The Urban Dictionary defines twitter as:

A stupid site for stupid people with no friends, who think everyone else gives a shit what they’re doing at any given time.

Darryl Talley is a former 2-time NFL Pro-Bowl player. He also understands the true definition of twitter a lot better than most of the athletes we follow.

DarrylTalley

(Darryl Talley)

I'm watching NCIS if anyone gives a shit. On 9:41 PM May 22nd 2010 from Echofon

Yesterday Quentin Groves was traded from the Jacksonville Jaguars to the Oakland Raiders for a reported fifth round pick.

Adam Schefter reported this around 5 PM yesterday. He was beat to the story by someone. Who?

QuentinGroves54

(Q)

Duval County....I LOVE U GUYS...thanks for all your support...New Starts=New Beginnings...OAKLAND HERE I COME!!!! On 6:47 PM Apr 21st 2010 from Twittelator

Quentin Groves broke this news himself. I have no idea if this is the first time this has happened or just the first time I saw it but I thought it was a pretty cool thing to do. The guy reached out to his fans and friends first to break the news. He spent the better part of the next few hours answering questions from his followers and confirming the trade as people heard about.

Good luck in Oakland Quentin.

Let me start this story with some words about myself. I don’t know a lot about sports that don’t happen within the United States. This includes soccer (I am trying to follow it more, that’s a story for another time). I probably do know more about IPL (Indian Premier League) cricket than I do about soccer because a friend of mine was born in India and still follows it closely.

Here is what I do know:

Cricket is huge – It is a multi-billion dollar business. It eclipses a lot of US sports franchises in revenue and viewership. It doesn’t quite match up to soccer but it isn’t as far behind as you would think.

Twenty20 Cricket - The stereotype that most American’s have of cricket being a multiple day event is slowly going away. The formation of Twenty20 cricket has brought match times down to about 3 and half hours. The IPL is a Twenty20 Cricket league. A lot of people don’t like this version of the game. It is seen as not being pure to the way cricket was meant to be played and pandering to a larger (worldwide) audience. There is also a lot more US style fanfare with cheerleaders and pre-game fireworks.

The IPL is big business - The franchise Pune was bought by Sahara Adventure Sports group for $370 million dollars. According to Forbes that would place it at about the forty-first richest franchise if it was in the United States, worth more than the Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs and every single NHL franchise. Since the IPL’s birth franchises have been bought by public entities which have been known to include many Bollywood stars and billionaire entrepreneurs. The UK-based brand consultancy, Brand Finance, has valued the IPL at $4.13 billion in 2010.

You are probably asking yourself, “How does all this relate to social media?”.

The commissioner of the IPL has a twitter account and last week all hell broke loose.

The IPL recently awarded a franchise to Rendezvous Sports World (RSV). According to Wikipedia Rendezvous Sports World Limited is a consortium made up of multiple companies. It had made the winning bid of USD 333 million in a global invitation to tender process called by the IPL for two new franchises from IPL season 2011. What does this all mean?

Since it’s a group made of multiple companies it is said there was a confidentiality agreement in place that the buying parties would not be named. If such an agreement exists it was breached in grand fashion last week:

LalitKModi

(Lalit Kumar Modi)

A lot of you asking shareholders and events surrounding the kochi team. I am compilling a note shortly and will put an offical release soon On 10:16 AM Apr 11th 2010 from UberTwitter

LalitKModi

(Lalit Kumar Modi)

25% of kochi team is given free to Rendezvous sports for life.The same equity is non dilutable in prepetuity.What does that mean? Why ? Wait On 10:19 AM Apr 11th 2010 from UberTwitter

LalitKModi

(Lalit Kumar Modi)

Will disclose those details soon. On 10:20 AM Apr 11th 2010 from UberTwitter

LalitKModi

(Lalit Kumar Modi)

Who are the shareholders of rendezvous. And why have they been given this 100's of million dollar bonanza ? On 10:21 AM Apr 11th 2010 from UberTwitter

LalitKModi

(Lalit Kumar Modi)

Kochi shareholders are: Rendezvous 25% free, Rendezvous 1%,Anchor 27%, Parinee 26%, Film waves combine 12%,Anand Shyam 8%,Vivek venugopal 1% On 10:29 AM Apr 11th 2010 from UberTwitter

LalitKModi

(Lalit Kumar Modi)

Rendezvous free equity - held by kisan,shailender & pushpa gaikwad,Sunanda pushkar,Puja gulathi,jayant kotalwar,vishnu prasad,sundip agarwal On 10:33 AM Apr 11th 2010 from UberTwitter

Due to this twitter explosion there are now lawsuits going back and forth between the RSV and the IPL. This was not the biggest piece of news the commissioner broke that day. He continues with the big bombshell:

LalitKModi

(Lalit Kumar Modi)

@xxxDEVxxx a big?I was told by him not to get into who owns rendezvous.Specially Sunanda Pushkar.Why?The same has been minuted in my records On 10:56 AM Apr 11th 2010 from UberTwitter in reply to Roshan Dev

Who is Sunanda Pushkar? She is the longtime female companion of Dr. Shashi Tharoor. Once again, according to Wikipedia:

Dr. Shashi Tharoor had a long career working in the United Nations as the Director of Communications and Special Projects and Executive Assistant to the Security-General Kofi Annan. He was working in the UN in some capacity from 1978-2007. He then became the Minister of State for External Affairs of the Government of India and is a member of the Indian Parliament from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala. That was until April 18, 2010.

It appears that a major player in securing RSV this IPL franchise was Tharoor and now his girlfriend had a 4.5% sweat equity (no money put in, just a share of a company for work done) in this 333 million dollar franchise. Do the math, that’s quite a large sum of a quickly growing business. Rumors say that this was given to the girlfriend for the work Tharoor did in getting the conglomerate RSV together.

Amid this pressure, once again all brought on by the commissioner of the league, Tharoor stepped down.

Today it was announced that since all this information was leaked finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has announced a full investigation into the IPL. This includes allegations of betting and money laundering. This morning there was an income tax raid on the IPL offices looking for evidence.

The commissioner had this to say on his twitter:

LalitKModi

(Lalit Kumar Modi)

Lots in media - speculations. welcome all investigation - ready to extend all cooperation. On 11:57 AM Apr 19th 2010 from UberTwitter

I have a feeling this story is long from over.

You may remember awhile back we highlighted a great moment in Santonio Holmes social networking career. In summation he told a fan who vilified him for harassing women to kill himself. Granted he said it much better than I just did there: U shud try finding the worst thing that you could drink n kill urself

Great stuff there.

Well don’t worry folks Santonio didn’t do it! He spoke to NJ.com
and had this to say for himself:

“It wasn’t me,” Holmes said. “I never tried to defend myself on that topic among anyone on Twitter or among anyone that tried to ask me for interviews. I would definitely be accountable for my actions if I did say it.”

So what does one do when their twitter account is hacked? According to twitter.com the proper move is:

“It’s best to take action as soon as possible if updates are appearing in your account that you did not intend to have posted or approve.”

So I assume Santonio did just this and came back on and told everyone what time it was. Wake and Bake time of course.

So what did Santonio have to say on his first tweet since the big trade to the Jets:

santonio10

(Santonio Holmes)

Morning, the lessons from my bad choices are never forgotten, only to b utilized the next go round! On 1:15 PM Apr 13th 2010 from UberTwitter

Would of those lessons be not using password1 as your twitter password?

Also, if you didn’t find this post hilarious I would just like to say now that my account was hacked.