Dong Hyuk Lee – ID # 471445

Sports, Media & Pop Culture

Friday, October 20th, 2017

SOCIAL MEDIA AND SPORTS: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN

THEM, THEIR ORIGINS AND PECULIARITIES

Social media are generally defined as the collective of online communication channels de-

voted to community-based material, interaction and content-sharing. Websites and apps dedicated

to forums, wikis and social networking are among the different types of social media.

Nowadays, we generally don’t think about how much relevance social media have on our

lives, how they represent the world we live in, every aspect of it, including sport. So, how social

media and sports are connected? How are they essential to each other?

If we think about tools like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat, we realize that they

have a great power, especially due to the audience that they are able to reach. Almost every day we

receive notifications and we read news about an important team that lost a game, professional football

players that knee during the U.S. national anthem, play-

ers that had unfortunate injuries etc… types of news that

seem so innocent with the only goal to inform the audi-

ence about what is going on in the sport world, but with

the power to set off intense discussions and conversa-

tions between those people that feel strongly passionate

about what it is considered nowadays being part of

American culture, that is part of them.

The history of sport activities is as long as the history of humans since fitness played a key

role in human evolution. In themselves, sports have been providing reliable mirrors of societies and
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their values, such as discipline, self – control, fairness and the belief in effort and productivity, sup-

porting also social and cultural identities.

If we think about the current sport industry landscape, almost every team, league and sports

association have social medias profile in order to share news and comments with their beloved fans,

ready to learn more information about their favorite teams and players and these amazing tools have

also become a perfect platform for live streaming of games.

The giants of Twitter and Facebook have decided to try to make live streaming available in

their forums, arising excitement and enthusiasm among the users. For instance, Twitter is already

partnering with the NFL in order to show 10 important games and Facebook promised to stream at

least 46 matches from Mexico’s Liga MX soccer league in 2017.

Almost all of the professional athletes have the possibility to live a lifestyle that most of the

average people, we can say with common jobs, can only dream about, because these incredibly fa-

mous athletes can do what they love showcasing their talents on a grand stage. The fact that they

represent such an important aspect in the American culture, makes the fans hope that one day they

will have the chance to personally interact with them also if they know that that day may never come.

So, the perfect option to that, is the use of social media. Social media provides an outlet and oppor-

tunity for fans and athletes to digitally connect and interact with each other at any time.

For instance, the future NBA Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant recently suffered a torn Achilles. In

order to relies some of his

frustration, he decided to

share a comment about his

injury on his Facebook

page.

In less than two

days, his comment obtained almost half million of Likes. Just this example is able to show how social

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media can serve as a platform for authentic communication between a superstar athlete and his or her

fans.

If we analyze the topic under an economic point of view, we can see that by engaging fans

via social media, sports rights holders are able to open new communication channels with their audi-

ence that can be measured and valued as a new commercial opportunity with sponsors and, on the

other side, sponsor can increase their popularity.

A perfect example of the importance of social media in an economic relationship is the case

of Lionel Messi (an Argentine soccer player who has established records and won awards, becoming

the world’s best soccer player) and Adidas.

During the World Cup in 2014, the famous brand sponsored the teams who made it to the

final Argentina and Germany as well as having the rights to design and sponsor the tournament ball.

However, it has been its relationship with the best soccer player of the world, Lionel Messi

that has been able to place Adidas at the

top of the sport apparel market. In order to

increase the sells, the German brand de-

cided to try something different, some-

thing that would have been able to reach a

worldwide audience. Adidas decided to

set up a Twitter account for Lionel Messi,

called @TeamMessi, which, by a defini-

tion given by the company, is “The official twitter account of Team Messi – a global fan movement

founded by adidas to celebrate everything Messi.”

This is just an example, but we can also mention: Tag Heuer & Cristiano Ronaldo, Under

Armour & Jordan Spieth, Reebok & Connor McGregor, Lexus & Vernon Davis, Samsung & LeBron

James, Puma & Usain Bolt, Gatorade & Serena Williams, IWC Watches & Lewis Hamilton, Moet &

Chandon & Roger Federar, and much more… all of these sponsors decided to use social medias (in
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particularly Twitter and Facebook) to increase their popularity, the ones of the players that they are

representing with consequently huge profits.

Another aspect that generally goes unnoticed is the fact that not just the professional sport

world is affected by social media, but also athletes to high school and college levels have been in-

volved in this extraordinary technology revolution.

98% of American colleges have Facebook addresses, whereas 84% of them have Twitter. And

with 72% of coming up high school seniors answering that they researched colleges they want to go

on social medias, athletic departments change recruiting methods to do via social network.

Social media change entire way of recruiting. Most of recruiting system started from school

team coach till few years ago. However, social medias have done this job faster with smaller effort.

For coaches, it still exists as another way for contacting, recruiting, and gathering information about

players. For young athletes, social media is easiest and closest way to communicate with fans, friends

and coaches. Furthermore, now it also be a way for get a recruit that no one can expect this thing can

be able through social media.

Social media can give an ac-

cess that just can’t show through

college web site, e-mails, brochures,

and even on-campus visits, by

providing recruits with a view of the

school and team culture and identi-

ties. Social media make things pos-

sible to look up everything including campus life, athletic facilities, the teams, and current athletes

by posting on the media page.

In conclusion, social media are essential in our everyday life. They have changed, and they

are still changing, how we communicate with other people, giving us the possibility to share com-

ments, photos, videos, about our interests with the hope to find others how share our same passions.
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 Nowadays they are used almost everywhere for different reasons, trying to meet new people,

searching for love, for jobs, but what is sometimes unnoticed is how powerful they regarding a soci-

ological and economic points of view. In the sport world, social media offer the possibility to fans to

watch games live, to be the first ones to

know news and information about teams

and to “kind of connect” with celebrity

players, that seem unreachable and thanks

to the huge audience gained by these

tools, sponsors and players have the pos-

sibility to create huge profits.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9fa4/2beb67768953686ebc6281cd96d9c3b7ca57.pdf

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/business-of-sport/social-media-in-sport/

 https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/what-is-social-media-s-role-in-sports

 http://velocityagency.com/the-influence-of-social-media-in-sports-marketing/

 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-pickering/athletes-and-social-media_b_3082184.html

 https://www.spredfast.com/social-marketing-blog/how-social-media-changing-college-re-

cruiting