Social Media in Sports

           Social media is a great thing to take advantage of for small and large businesses. No matter how much business you have coming and going, you will need social media one way or another. That's just the direction the world is coming to at the moment. It may be just a phase or it may stick around until the "next big thing" comes along, but until then businesses should not lose this opportunity and take advantage of this phenomenon. Two organizations I will be talking about is ESPN and Yahoo! but more specifically Yahoo! Sports.

          ESPN is arguably the biggest and most popular sports network in the world.  They cover many sports from baseball to international soccer. Many sports are covered by experts from their respective sports. The reason why ESPN has done this is because who knows professional sports better than former professional players and coaches. Every analyst, reporter, commentators, or news anchor has a Twitter account which they show pretty much every time they are on air. ESPN as a network has their own Twitter as well which includes breaking news or big games that are occurring at that moment. 

         Yahoo! Sports also seems to have all their bloggers, columnists, and reporters on Twitter as well. I am frequently on the Yahoo! Sports webpage and often see their Twitter handles on the right side of their columns or blogs and again at the very bottom. 

         Sports have been around for so long and with ESPN and Yahoo! Sports utilizing social media such as Twitter and Facebook, it helps their audience of followers to gain knowledge a little quicker. It helps people understand what's going on and what's happening in the sports world. This is very helpful for the sports fanatics out there which includes me.

      Another great thing that can be said about social media in sports is that even the professional athletes or college athletes that we watch have Twitter or Facebook accounts. Some NBA players that are on Twitter are Lebron James, Kevin Durant, and Kobe Bryant just to name a few. Social media has made a big impact on fans of their respective sports. With being able to interact with a sports star, it means a lot to the fans and the sports nation has seen that and is taking full advantage. They use social media to the best of their ability and it seems to be working.