NBA and Twitter: What Guidelines Should Be Put in Place?
by Packey on Sep 9, 2009 7:00 AM CDT
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6 comments
As most of you already know, Twitter is becoming prevalent in sports. Currently, four of our beloved Pistons (Charlie Villanueva, Austin Daye, DaJuan Summers, and Jonas Jerebko) tweet as a way to bring their fans into their personal lives, allowing them to see what they are doing to ready themselves for the upcoming season or just what they are doing during their down time.
Recently, the NBA responded to the NFL's league wide guidelines for its players using Twitter by saying they would follow in their footsteps and also implement regulations. From what it sounds like, the NBA will emulate the NFL regulations and issue a ban on mid-game/halftime tweets and provide a grace period before and after games for when players would be allowed to tweet.
Of course, our favorite halftime tweeter, Charlie Villanueva, asked to hear the thoughts of his fans, and ultimately, wants Twitter nation to unite and make sure the NBA doesn't eliminate the usage of Twitter, but merely regulate it.
Being an avid user of Twitter myself, I gave CV31 my opinion on the matter, to which he responded (it reads bottom to top):
Excuse my Twitter grammar as 140-characters is tough to fully oblige with the English language. I think you're able to decipher what I mean, though. Basically, I understand the reasoning behind the NFL and NBA's guidelines. I believe mid-game tweeting from players is just asking for controversy. As I said above, one of the biggest concerns to me is that it could open the door to added criticism for losses and/or poor individual performances -- criticism that might not necessarily be fair regardless of any tweeting.
CV31 appears to agree with me in that pre-game and post-game tweets in place of mid-game tweets is reasonable, but also feels regulated half-time tweets can work. To that, I'd reiterate that I don't think any athlete should be tweeting between tip off and the final horn. As I said, it's just asking for unnecessary trouble.
With that being said, I don't want to downplay the importance of Twitter and how useful it is in connecting fans to the game and its players. It's a great resource for us fans and I definitely believe that it should exist in some fashion. I think David Stern realizes this, too.
Perhaps a team representative, a non-player of some sort, could tweet his observations within the locker room and/or from the sidelines between the start and finish of games. And then once that final horn sounds, I have no problem with a player getting back to his locker and tweeting his own thoughts and observations from his personal account.
No matter when an athlete tweets, they should be very careful with what they say because thousands of people are reading these public micro-blogs, so anything even remotely controversial could unnecessarily spiral out of control.
Take Pistons' rookie, DaJuan Summers' Twitter race with a pornstar for example. Someone sees the tweet, posts it on their blog, and thousands of people see it and it automatically becomes news whether DaJuan and the pornstar wanted it to be or not. It's entirely innocent, yet anyone who has negative portrayals of pornstars automatically paints this otherwise interesting story into solely a controversy.
Back to the point at issue, assume Villanueva's half time tweet last season wasn't followed up by a terrific 2nd half performance and the Bucks wound up losing because Villanueva actually played poorly. Don't you think CV31 would be making himself vulnerable to added criticism because some people might think his mind during half time was on tweeting as opposed to getting mentally prepared for a grueling second half? After all, people thought that anyway! I understand where his head is at and would never dare question his mentality or heart, but don't you think it might create an easy target for someone who doesn't?
What do you think?
If you want to respond to Villanueva on Twitter, then by all means do so, because he wants to hear your thoughts. But please leave your thoughts here, too. I want to read what everyone thinks about the NBA and its inevitable Twitter policy. What kind of policy would you implement if you were Commissioner Stern?
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I tweet at work, why not athletes?
I tweet at work quite often. I tweet about my service as an AmeriCorps member, so I tweet professionally. I tweet about my Pistons. I tweet about politics. Etc.
Why can’t athletes tweet on the job as well? Why are they held to a standard that we don’t even hold ourselves to?
Here’s my answer to my own question :) The NBA, like any corporatoin that’s out to make money, wants control. Athletes tweeting gives athletes unprecedented access to the fans — without the middle man, like Jim Grey. Take away the middle man, take away part of the revenue stream. You think ESPN/ABC didn’t pay big money to get in-game interviews with NBA coaches?
If those coaches and players can simply tweet their thoughts, then Jim Grey/ABC/ESPN is redundant and unecessary (or at least they could become so in the future). If they are unnecessary, then they won’t shell out the cash to get that face time; hence, the NBA stands to lose money.
Unfortunately, that’s what it’s about. It’s not about the athlete losing focus; it’s not about being a disruption to the team; it’s about the NBA and profit. (Obviously, an NBA head coach might tell a different story, but that’s not what’s being discussed atm).
At least that’s what I think.
by brgulker on Sep 9, 2009 9:23 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Yeah I was sort of flirting with your line of thinking with my last comment to CV31
But not everyone uses Twitter. Not everyone is going to see those in game tweets, just the handful of people who use it and actually follow that athlete. If that’s the case, which I think it is, ESPN/ABC could evolve, too. Instead of having a sideline reporter doing mid-game interviews, they could be the guy checking the tweets and relaying them. They do that on a lot of sports shows now anyway, what’d be the difference mid-game?
There are ways around it so the ESPN/ABCs of the world can still get paid. Sure, an athlete might answer a question during a half time tweet that would get asked post game, but some questions would still go unanswered when athletes tweet. Those reporters are still needed to ask the tough questions.
Also, to the “why are they held to a standard that we don’t even hold ourselves to” question. They’re held to a higher standard because they are getting paid millions more than we are at our day jobs. Their job consists of 48 minutes of playing the best they possibly can to help the team win, 48 minutes of focus. Any regulations to cut down on any unnecessary personal distractions would be a good idea. And to actually answer your question, I’m not so sure it is a higher standard — a lot of employers have actually banned tweeting too, for productivity concerns. I won’t be surprised to see it more often as Twitter continues to become even more popular.
I think it’d be awesome to be able to hear what CV thinks during half time while we’re all doing our half time beer, bathroom, or food break, but I definitely understand the reasoning behind a mid-game tweet ban. I’d hate to see writers introducing mid-game tweets as possible evidence for a 2nd half melt down or whatever. It just make sense not to allow it at all IMO
Obviously I’m not making the rule and who knows what Stern will decide.
Do you think it’d be better to have someone tweeting for them during games, if it were to be allowed? Would a one tweet per half time rule work?
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by Packey on Sep 9, 2009 10:03 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Also, to the "why are they held to a standard that we don’t even hold ourselves to" question. They’re held to a higher standard because they are getting paid millions more than we are at our day jobs. Their job consists of 48 minutes of playing the best they possibly can to help the team win, 48 minutes of focus. Any regulations to cut down on any unnecessary personal distractions would be a good idea
That’s a fair point, but I don’t think it’s been established in any meaningful way that Twitter detracts from an athlete’s productivity.
Obviously, I’ve never been in an NBA locker room. I don’t know what the atmosphere is like. I don’t know at what point the coaches enter the room and what they say when they do. But, if it’s anything like high school or college, there are at least 5-10 minutes when the players are just sitting, stretching, grabbing a drink, taking a leak, etc. If an athlete grabs his phone and sends a quick tweet — is that necessarily a distraction to himself and his teammates? I don’t think it’s been established that Twitter — or any other type of communication like that — will always be a distrction for every team, every player, and every locker room. The NBA simply doesn’t have enough knowledge about each individual team to make that judgment league-wide.
It is a potential distraction, yes, but that will depend on the team, the players who compose the team, and the coaches of that team. I don’t have a problem with a particular NBA coach who bans Twitter, texting, phone calls, whatever from the locker room. It’s his ship, and he’s the captain.
I do have a problem with the NBA setting official guidelines, though — and it’s my impression that official NBA guidelines is what’s at issue here (Am I wrong there? Might be…). The NBA doens’t have any business regulating what happens in the Pistons locker room or any other locker room. That’s up to each team. (Sort of resembles the federal vs. state gov’t debate, in a strange way).
But let’s reframe the debate — let’s think about this from the perspective of an NBA fan, like you and me. How cool is it to think that we’ll get to hear snippets of CV’s thoughts about how each individual game is going? How great is that? We get to peek into the locker room! That’s unprecedented, free access — why would we oppose that as fans?
by brgulker on Sep 9, 2009 10:37 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
I think you’re right on about the guidelines — it should probably be the team’s discretion, not the NBA’s.
As far as being a distraction to the players and affecting productivity, there’s no evidence to prove or disprove it either way, I just think it eliminates it as a possibility altogether. Why put yourself in a situation to be tempted to be distracted? If it has any chance, any chance whatsoever, of being a distraction and get you away from what you’ve mentally set out to do, why allow it as even an option? I don’t think tweeting a few times actually affects the way Villanueva approaches the game, but it opens the door to unnecessary finger pointing and potential distractions.
Like you, I have no idea what the policies are in the locker room, but I imagine players aren’t calling their friends, emailing people, or doing interviews, so why would Twitter guidelines be any different?
This is definitely an interesting (and personally, confusing) debate. As a fan, I would love to continuously hear what’s going on behind the scenes from some of my favorite players, but at the same time I want them just as focused as the NBA or organization does, so that they continue to play well and win games. Ultimately, I want my team to win games and if banning Twitter helps, then that’s what I want (I think). It is a lot more comforting knowing that the player could be getting ready for the game as opposed to actually on his phone thinking of something to say on Twitter. Of course an ideal situation would be having my favorite team winning AND reading all our favorite players tweets. I just don’t know how far fetched that is. I’m probably on the fence with this.
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by Packey on Sep 9, 2009 11:52 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Fair enough. I understand where you’re coming from.
by brgulker on Sep 9, 2009 12:08 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
I mean Twitter is pretty awesome and I’m probably over-analyzing it big time with the rest of people, I just am not outraged at policies being implemented I guess is the best way to put it
Motown String Music- SB Nation's Detroit Pistons Blog
by Packey on Sep 9, 2009 2:18 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
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