Player Conduct Online: Should Verified Users Engage Fans and Officials in “Twitter Wars”?

Lang: Taken from http://bit.ly/1x4ZzDf Bissonnette: Taken from http://bit.ly/1wibyxY

The Twitter-verse is one of the most rapidly growing pieces of social media in the world. It is also the most notable site for famous athletes to channel their inner personalities. Many players rarely ever communicate with fans or other players. Sometimes, players criticize officiating and other things out of their own control. Then there are the players who find the need to get back at something fans, or even other rival players have to say via social media. Let’s take a look at two different players in two different major sports leagues in North America.

First: T.J. Lang of the Green Bay Packers.

Now let’s not jump to conclusions and start saying that Lang is a dirty player or a bad person because of his quick-wit off the field. During the NFL’s replacement referee debacle, Lang took to Twitter to voice his anger.

Other Tweets using profanity from the same day have since been deleted by Lang, but quote-tweets of Lang’s outburst still exist.

These Tweets came after the replacement referees made a controversial call in a game against the Seattle Seahawks, where Seattle receiver Golden Tate appeared to have caught the game winning touchdown, but Packers M.D. Jennings actually intercepted the ball. The ruling on the field was a touchdown for Seattle, costing Green Bay the game.

Second: Paul Bissonnette of the Arizona Coyotes (Formerly Phoenix Coyotes)

The NHL is full of characters, some good, some bad, and some just plain ugly. This is where Paul Bissonnette, or “BizNazty” comes into play.

Before I get into Bissonnette’s antics on twitter, I figured it would be a great idea to let everyone who doesn’t watch hockey in on his on-ice behavior. The guy is hardly a “skilled” asset to the Coyotes.

Take a look at the PIM, or Penalties In Minutes category Taken from http://coyotes.nhl.com/club/player.htm?id=8470713

Biz has a habit of engaging fans who “chirp”, or talk trash to him via Twitter. He has a cheeky response to most, if not all of his protagonists.

See what I mean? That’s only one example.

The main question here is, should professional athletes be allowed to use social media for things that are not exactly constructive? What if the tweets damage the team’s reputation? How about the league’s reputation? I believe that taking social media away from players completely is not the appropriate thing to do because there are players out there who do use it for constructive things such as charity and positive fan interaction. Why let a few bad apples spoil the fun for everyone?

Jonathan Weisman is a student at Monmouth University, where he studies both marketing and public relations. He is interested in most sports played around the world on both professional and non-professional levels. Weisman currently works for Aramark as a Marketing Intern and looks to pursue a career in either the marketing or PR fields.