Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Social Media's Impact on the NFL





Title : The Impact of Social Media on Football and the NFL
Name : Dante Hall
Course Code : C0-108W Tools / Processes
Date: October 30th / 2012

 Assignment : Multimedia Research
By : Dante Hall
"Baseball is America's favorite pastime." Its a phrase we've all heard before. Slowly overtime though American Football has taken over that role. With the growth of a sport watched and played by so  many also grows the many influences that have impacted its direction. Social Media is a highly underestimated and after-thought of an influence in sports. The three case studies below illustrate the overall influence of Twitter on the NFL, the impact Fantasy Football has had on the game, and lastly how Social Media helped end a controversy within the sport itself.

NOTE: Words outlined in  Yellow  are Hyperlinks to referenced articles.
Case Study One
 
 The use of twitter by NFL teams, players, and media people/ reporters has created a highly effective way for the NFL’s fan base and NFL players to communicate and interact with each other, the teams and other players like never before. A survey on sports and social media reported by Craig Davis in his article that said 42% of NFL fans are using Twitter during games tweeting about what they’re watching. Twitter gives fans a sense of unity in a sense. "[Fans] feel like they are all together. If they are tweeting with a particular hash tag for that game, they can all comment to each other. These are people who don't even know each other," said Dhiraj Murthy, assistant professor of sociology at Bowdoin College in Davis's article. Twitter has enabled fans to chit-chat with someone they've never met about the same game, player, or team.


All rights reserved and video credit to Sports Radio 810 WHB
NFL teams all have a Twitter account for their Fans to follow as well. These Twitter accounts are used so fans can receive up to the minute updates on Player cuts, trades, injuries, pickups, cheerleader pictures, contests, and everything else related to the teams.

 Obviously there are the negatives.

 After a bad game, and being frustrated with all the people tweeting his account with comments about his play, Carolina Panther's running back DeAngelo Williams lashed out on his followers and received a backlash or criticism from the public.



After last years NFC championship game San Francisco 49er's receiver Kyle Williams recieved multiple death threats via his Twitter account because of a fumble that cost his team a win and trip to the Superbowl.

 In May 2011 Tennessee Titan's quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and New York Jet's cornerback Antonio Cromartie got into a twitter spat. Hasselbeck tweeted out "Somebody ask Cromartie if he knows what CBA stands for." but later deleted it. Cromartie immediately responded by tweeting "hey Matt if u have something to then say it be a man about it. Don't erase it. I will smash ur face in." Naturally both players were ripped into by the public and sports analysts about their public war.

 The influence of Twitter overall has been a positive influence on the NFL and has helped with its growth. Fans love how they can easily interact with other fans from across their country or even the world about they team they both root for every Sunday. Teams can easily provide up to the minute news about every little new detail about their team. Also people love the fact that it enables players to voice their opinion on things, but are quick to give them criticism if their comments are in a negative context.

Case Study Two

Most people think Fantasy Football is just a game people play involving football, and football players but in a sense it can be considered as a Social Media outlet relative to the NFL and football. ESPN, Yahoo Sports, and NFL.com are the  most used and most popular Fantasy Football formats used around the world. Friends and family use Fantasy Football as a way to keep in touch with one-another. Because of the growing popularity of Fantasy Football, NFL.com this year partnered with Google to add Google + Hangouts which allows Fantasy team owners to video chat and communicate with one another whenever they're logged on.


                                              Image property of Google™.


Fantasy Football has also had a huge impact on the NFL itself. During live broadcasts of games, TV networks are now showing the fantasy stats and points of players during halftimes and before going and coming back from commercial breaks. Even the 'Ticker' at the bottom sports networks like ESPN, TSN, and NFL Network used to display up to the minute updates on recent sporting news, injuries, trades, etc. are now displaying Fantasy Football stats as well as.

A big problem fans have voiced is not being able to check up on their Fantasy Football teams when at actual stadiums while watching games live. Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner talks in this video about how the NFL plans to install Wifi in stadiums to satisfy the fan's demands among other things.

If there is one negative to take away from Fantasy Football is that fans can end up cheering and rooting for numerous players on a bunch of separate teams, forgetting ultimately to watch with their full attention the game that their favorite team is playing in

 Ten years ago generally fans watched a couple of games of their favorite teams on a Sunday afternoon. Fast forward to today and your average fan is flipping in-between channels between numerous games trying to catch glimpses of players on their fantasy teams while catching a few minutes of the games.

 This can be a good and bad thing. On one hand your now accumulating interest by fans in more then one team or player and generating ratings in multiple games. On the other hand there are fewer and fewer "True Fans" that have one or two favorite teams and cheer for just them on a weekly basis. It can be argued that some fans aren't watching football because of their love for the game, but rather because of their interest in what many call just a game.

Case Study Three

 The first month of the 2012/2013 season was a disaster because of the Replacement officials. Referees in virtually every sport are hated in one way or another...but these replacement officials by the end of the whole thing were seen with such hate and rage by fans and players that they caused a Social Media storm on Twitter and Facebook.

 The NFL locked out the original referees because they were unwilling to pay them the wanted annual salaries and unwilling to give them a better pension plan.  Delayed calls, incorrect calls, penalties being marked wrong, coaches being given extra timeouts and challenges,and overturned plays impacted the flow and momentum of many games. Many players, fans and reporters expressed their want for the NFL to give into the regular referee's demands and sign them back, "What I'm looking for is the game to be played the way it should be played and for it to be called the way it should be called.'' Defensive end Cory Redding of the Indianapolis Colts was quoted saying via Yahoo Sports.  The most memorable replacement ref mishap and final one at that cost the Green Bay Packers a win in Seattle to the Seahawks in week 3 on a freak hail marry play at the end of the game. This is the thing that finally put so many people over the edge and caused a Social Media hurricane.



All rights reserved to the NFL, video credited to "StewartsChannel" on youtube.
Packer’s safety M.D. Jennings clearly catches the ball instead of Seahawks wide receiver Golden Tate for the game sealing interception, but was later reversed by the Replacement officials and ruled a Touchdown on a “Simultaneous catch” by two players and is always awarded to the offensive player. Golden Tate was also not called for offensive pass interference on Packer corner back Sam Sheilds who he shoved in the back while the ball was airborne.

 After the game Packer's Guard TJ Lang sent out a tweet that i won't show to because of expletive language, but it was retweeted close to 99,000 times and favourited just over 28,000 times. This tweet clearly started the ball rolling on the social media storm that helped to end the lockout. He and other Packers also tweeted out :
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Since this was a Monday night game, it was virtuously seen by the majority of the fans and players of the NFL. Many players also took to their Twitter accounts to vent their frustration about how these replacements could mess up such an easy call and cost a team a win.





Many other players and fans also took to twitter to voice their own thoughts on how the NFL needed the regular referees back in action ASAP. People even made Facebook pages aimed to insult replacement officials like this facebook link.


 Things like this were going on the entire month of September in the NFL just a bad call hadn't cost a team a win up to that point. You could say that this was the straw that broke the camels back, especially in the US president tweets this.

With the pressure of the fan base and players to get a deal done after this huge event and the Social Media pressure put on them afterwords by fans and players the NFL finally cracked and gave into the demands of the original officialis and gave them what they wanted. Regular referees were reffing the next weeks games and were given around of applause at the start of multiple games by fans, players, and a few coaches to show them they were happy for them to be back in actions, of course the refs went back to being hated a week or two later. All is back to normal and good in the NFL now.

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