Whether its good news like LeBron James and his 28 million followers finding out he is giving out college scholarships to kids in his hometown or bad news like the Ray Rice scandal in which a the professional football player was seen on video knocking his wife unconscious - in a matter of moments news on anything sports related takes off like wildfire and will most likely be "trending" before you know it. And for sports fans, its like a Sunday in September with your favorite team rolling through their opponent and its not even halftime yet.
For us fanatics (yes, I'm one of them!), we don't need to search out the score or find out the latest breaking news from our local newscaster on the 6:00 p.m. edition. That news finds us. Whether we are walking through the grocery store and we get an alert, or our phone buzzes in the middle of the night with a tweet from your favorite teams' Twitter account about their star player.
Twitter, Facebook and even Instagram have become the norm in terms of news reporting and information gathering.
Think about the news we heard all summer long in terms of sports - Deflategate. When Tom Brady decided to respond to his four-game suspension, he didn't hold a press conference or do an exclusive 1-on-1 prime time interview. No, he posted a message on his Facebook account.
Or when James announced he was leaving Miami to return to his native Cleveland, he penned a letter and posted on a website. And what ensued? A media marketing campaign for a native son that rivaled a mayoral run in some small cities.
Another great factor in this marriage is the true connection fans feel with athletes and teams. Fans want instant gratification and inside access to the favorite players, their lives and all the trappings that go with it. The couch potato from Cleveland or the sophomore stud on the high school team wants to know that there is that slight chance that you might have an interaction with the athlete who's poster is above your bed or who's jersey you wear every Sunday.
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 4, 2015
Because professional athletes realize the impact social media can have, they use social media to brand themselves. Access is granted and their willingness to share the most mundane aspects of their lives sometimes, is something that we as fans will continue to gobble up in record pace.
And it's not only the professional athletes, its the teams themselves that provide that inside access we used to be only be able to dream about like this photo of former University of Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota who gives his mother a hug in the tunnel after his first professional football game. It's those kind of moments that humanize professional athletes and bring them to our level.
— Oregon Football (@WinTheDay) September 14, 2015
— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) September 12, 2015
And for someone like me who works in sports and communication, the marriage has helped tremendously with the ability to market a small Division III athletics program in a state and region where college sports sit on the very back burner of the news and information cycle.While our totals don't come close to the 246,500 Twitter followers at the University of Georgia, or the 31.3 million Instagram followers for Neymar, our circle of followers are loyal and committed to Clark Athletics.
So in 2015, with the coverage of sports and its star athletes on a never-ending cycle of who, what, when and where, social media's influence on the way news is disseminated and viewed in the sports world has changed dramatically from the days when reports smoked in the pressbox, wore pork pie hats, dressed in suits and banged away at a typewritter.
The good far outweighs the bad in this marriage of two heavyweights in the world today and the offspring that could come from this relationship is one that is being developed everyday as the digital world continues to spin on its axis.
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