Social media and sports

Like almost every facet of modern day life, technology and its platforms have impacted one way or the other on everyone.

Inescapable, sports has been sucked in by the heavy draft of worldwide popularity and acceptance.

Obviously, there are countless positives that social media provides in the promotion of sports personalities, events and showcasing.

Thanks to social media, updates and results can be had in real time.

With more communication channels available, sports’ reach is wider and faster; hence commercial opportunities are opened up.

Players are increasingly utilizing YouTube to market their abilities to coaches, in an effort to capture their imagination, in a hope to be recruited by them.

Whilst one accepts change is inevitable, one must also be cognisant that not everyone is into modern trends, either by choice or by accessibility.

Therefore, the over reliance on social media as the lone means of the dissemination of information will not cut it.

Some national sporting associations here in St Vincent and the Grenadines are beginning to err in this respect, throwing away, in an instant, other means of communication.

As a matter of course, they prefer to send information seekers to their Facebook pages or other social media outlets.

Such practices, whilst glossy and common to the gadget addicts, does not suffice all.

In so doing, the reliance on this mode of communication decreases the human touch and is creating a greater level of social disconnect among people.

Reaching out in traditional means, via telephone, face-to-face interactions and the like, remain viable tools for the sustenance of sporting organizations.

But while an emerging happening, it is fast reaching the point of being unchecked and cultured into becoming the norm.

Such are these practices, that the disclosure of selections of national teams is made through social media before press releases are sent out from the assigned public relations officers.

Some administrators’ fidgety hands seem to get the better of them and their disregard for protocol leaves the concept of professionalism to be a bystander.

Relevant and confidential data are gathered by postings and other revelations are comfortably passed on, using the many options which social media offers.  

Also, social media is now the laundromat for the washing of sporting organizations’ dirty linen, both by administrators and players alike.

Both sets of persons seem more comfortable with discussing issues in their chat rooms, rather that confronting them in an open forum, where facial emotions can be exhibited and solutions possibly reached.

Reports are that the morale and inter-personal relationship of some teams and other sporting units are being derailed by the fallouts created by the verbal crossfire ignited on social media.

Whilst we are existing in a free world, where choices and rights of associations are essentially inalienable, sporting organizations may be forced to institute guidelines for their members, regarding their operations on social media.

This, though, would be in respect to protocol in the use of the platforms in respect to the organization’s business.

In concluding, many of these risks generated by social media can be mitigated and avoided if sporting organizations employ appropriate levels of user awareness, guidance and sound administrative practices.