Mike Bako and Steve Olenski discuss how the National Lacrosse League put players' Twitter handles on jerseys in February, and why smaller leagues are moving faster than major sports to integrate social media. They cover risky tweets like Stephen Jackson's and how leagues monitor athletes online.
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Welcome to Inside Communications Radio. I'm Mike Bako. Today we're joined by Steve Olensky. Steve, thanks for joining us.
My pleasure, Mike.
So let's go inside the world of social media and sports. We hear so much now about the integration of everything. And just recently, a week ago on February 12, an NLL Hockey League, National Lacrosse League, I should say, game between the Philadelphia Wings had the jerseys with the Twitter handles on them. Are we going to be seeing this more or do you think that this is just a one shot deal?
That's kind of a hard question. It's kind of a wait and see. I think, Mike, you're going to see, I think you're going to see teams in all professional sports kind of take a look and see what, if any, interest and engagement levels. Increased levels of engagement and interest come from this. I think it's a very unique idea.
For sure, it's a unique idea. But I'm just thinking about today, we're Speaking today on February 17, if the NFL was doing this at this particular time, not sure if you're aware of this, but Stephen Jackson, the running back for the St. Louis Rams, tweeted out by accident that he needed condoms. Now this is obviously something that he did not want to have tweeted out. But just thinking about it in the larger context of how athletes now the blurring of the lines between sports, athlete personality, potentially having these Twitter integrations, doesn't the leagues, organizations need to take a better thought process on this in terms of how much information on these athletes do they really want out there?
They do. And I think we're kind of, I think we're talking about two different things now. One being what the Philadelphia Wings did, which having their Twitter handles on the back, which served theoretically anyway for a way for their fans to follow them and kind of promote their Twitter handles versus what these players are actually tweeting about. So it's kind of two different things. But to speak to what kind of obligations the leagues have in terms of monitoring and putting some guidelines in place, it's a tough call. Obviously in America, you know, with freedom of speech and everything that goes with that, you don't want to kind of put the reins on anybody. But they're also private employers so they can, you know, they'll have some say on what, what their employees, which in essence they are say and tweet about, about everything. So I know the NFL has guidelines in place. I'm sure the other three professional leagues have, have guidelines in place. Of course, guidelines, you know, are Guidelines and players kind of go by their own rules sometimes, so it's not going to be an exact science. Unfortunately for leagues. I think you're going to see a lot of players tweeting and Facebooking and everything else. Some things that the league is kind of going to cringe at and then kind of backpedal to kind of COVID it from like a PR standpoint.
And you blog about a lot of these things and a lot of things that are going on in social media. You call yourself a social media junkie. On Steve Balinsky.blogspot.com that's Steve. O L E N S K I at.blogspot.com what other trends do you think that we're going to be seeing? You mentioned the NFL in terms of allowing their players to tweet during the Pro Bowl. Do you think that we're going to be seeing more sports leagues maybe during the exhibition season, maybe during some of these all star games, allowing a little bit more of the fan interaction and the integration of some of the social media platforms?
Yeah, I definitely think that's a natural progression. One thing to keep in mind, you mentioned the Pro bowl, is that the NFL, they had certain stations set up computers and they were monitoring what was being tweeted out. So there was kind of a Big Brother presence. There wasn't like the players were on their cell phones tweeting from the sidelines. So it's an important distinction to make. But I think for sure you're going to see more and more leagues kind of test the waters, if you will, to where it's in the exhibition or perhaps even someone who's during a game but not in uniform kind of thing, but they're on the sidelines. So the fans really get that true real time feeling of what it's like to be in a game. I think those are the kinds of things you're going to see.
Do you think that some of that. I guess one of the reasons why people like Twitter so much and Facebook so much is that it is almost an instant, unfiltered, I guess, example of what someone's thinking at a specific moment. Do you think that with this filtering of a league oversight, do you think that we're going to lose some of the actual benefit to actually having athletes doing that?
I think it's going to depend on each league, to be honest with you. I mean, you know, one of the running jokes about the NFL is that it stands for the no fun League, you know, with their, with their penalties for successive celebrations in the end Zone and things like that. I think it's going to come down to a league by league determination of how much leeway they're going to give. And I think with the lacrosse league, allowing square handles on the back is kind of revolutionary. Yeah, they're not one of the big four major sports, but I think it caused the other four to sit up and take notice and hopefully, at least I think from a fans perspective, it'll kind of loosen the reins a little bit and allow for more of that engagement from players to fans. Because obviously after all the fans do ultimately pay their salaries.
Do you think that we'll see possibly some of the lesser leagues? As I mentioned, it was the National Lacrosse League that did this. Do you think that maybe some of the up and coming leagues, let's say Major League Soccer, some of the women's sports, the leagues that are just trying to get noticed, will be doing this faster and quicker than say, the established four here in North America?
Yeah, I do actually, and that's a great point. I think obviously those leagues that you just talked about don't have the benefit of multimillion dollar television contracts and advertising revenues and things like that. So they need to come up with these kind of niche, different ways of getting their name out, of getting their brand out, of getting their players out. And I think that's. You're going to see those kind and maybe even at the. And I'm going to open a can of worms here, but that you're going to see it at the college level as well, where you might see players, you know, tweeting, you know, during a college football game or an exhibition college football game or preseason scrimmage game kind of thing to engage the students on campus and of course their fans around the country. So I definitely think you're going to see the lesser known professional sports do this.
Yeah. Although I doubt we'll be seeing that at Ohio State. I think when Urban Meyer took over, he tried to install a ban on all sorts of social media for his players. So I'm sure it's going to be a slippery slope as we move forward. You've been listening to Inside Communications Radio. We're pleased to be joined by Steve Olenski. You can find more information about Steve at SteveOlinski O L E N Steve, thanks for joining us today.
