Best New Sports Tradition is Social Media during Live Sports Events

The Best New Sports Tradition is using Social Media during Live Sports events. After the last 24 hours, there is no doubt about that. The death of Osama bin Laden touched everyone and everything via Social Media, including Sports. Without Technology, this would never have been the case Sports Techie.

I was looking at the tweet stream of Tom Jolly last week. He is the New York Times former Sports Editor from 2003 until earlier this year and is now the Associate Managing Editor for the Night News. I have exchanged tweets with Tom several times this past year and consider him to be a solid and decent person. I noticed that he had commented on a post in his stream about how the ‘Best Tradition in Sports is the post-game handshake in Hockey’ which I agree with.

I love this good ol’ tradition and have participated in the handshake tradition many times throughout a 20-year Lacrosse career myself. Yet, this made me think about coming up with an original Sports Techie thought about what is the modern day version of the ‘Best Tradition in Sports.’

After contemplating for all of ten-minutes, I came up with ‘Tweeting during Live Sports events’ and quickly sent my own tweet to Tom stating this. Read it here:
@TomJolly Best new tradition in sports: logging on to #Twitter during a live sports event to see what is being tweeted.

Tom was nice enough to respond with his following thought:
@TomJolly @SportsTechieNET Better than watching with friends in a bar – unless, of course, you do both

Ok, I thought, Tom gets my drift and even made a funny comment about it so I qualified what he said with two acronyms that I made up, IGT and BIGT:
@TomJolly IGT: in-game tweets, or, as you stated from a bar: BIGT, lolll!

Then, the biggest one-day tweet occurrence in the history of @Twitter goes down on May Day when al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is killed and 4,000 tweets a minute digitize through the Internet at light-speed.

While this is not Sports (although a local Pakistani did tweet a play-by-play account of the attack by our Navy Seal troops to the world), it did become part of the story in a big way.

Before the end of the night in stadiums across the United States, fans knew about bin Ladens’ demise because Twitter first broke the story. Baseball fans at the Philadelphia Phillies vs. New York Mets game were tweeting, checking Facebook, and generally ignoring the game, in order to use their Social Media tools to be a Live part of this epic Osama news story.

Major League Baseball themselves tweeted the following:
@MLB MLB Philadelphia freedom: Fans react after hearing bin Laden news with chants of USA, USA … http://atmlb.com/kc1QRy

It turned out that athletes all over Twitter immediately spoke out and the Huffington Post wrote the following article that includes 14 Sports stars tweeted reactions to the death of Osama.

Athletes React To Osama Bin Laden’s Death On Twitter Huffington Post; including Darelle Revis, Lance Armstrong and Drew Brees:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/athletes-react-osama-bin-laden-death_n_856150.html#s272290&title=Darrelle_Revis

This phenomenon of using Social Media during Live Sports events has been building up speed over the past year and finally reached its final act in a spectacular crescendo with the death of Osama.

On April 28th, 2011, the following was posted via Yahoo about what Chicago White Sox Manager @ozzieguillen tweeted immediately after he was ejected from a game for arguing balls and strikes:
“This one going to cost me a lot money this is patetic” (sp)
… followed by:
“Today a tough guy show up a yankee stadium”
Here is the original tweet I read: Ozzie Guillen takes to Twitter immediately after ejection http://dlvr.it/Q1LWL #MLB /via @TouchByAM @bigleaguestew @cubfancurt

Ozzie’s compulsion to use Social Media during a Live Sports event was unprecedented for a MLB manager but not that surprising to me Sports Techie; after all, he was simply participating in our modern eras Best New Sports Tradition of using Social Media during a Live event, right.

After talking this trend over with my brother, he reminded me about when Jay Cutler got hurt during the 2010 NFC Championship game and how using Social Media during this Live Sports event turned ugly, fast. Both NFL players and fans alike questioned the Chicago Bears QB’s toughness and leadership in terms of his injured knee via Live Social Media before the game was even over. Cutler was physically unable to continue playing according to him and his trainers and he never returned to the game which the Bears lost to the eventual Super Bowl Champions the GB Packers.

Via MSNBC:
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/01/24/jay-cutler-had-tears-in-his-eyes-when-told-other-players-ripped-him/

What does this all mean? Is the Best New Sports Tradition using Social Media during Live Sports events? You better believe it Sports Techie! From here on forward, have your smartphones at the ready because during any Sporting event, you may be a participant with historical news that only Social Media can make you feel a Live part of while at a game. Our world’s Best New Sports Tradition is indeed using Social Media during Live events.

Finally, here is my original tweet to Tom sent to the NYT’s with a few words I added on to the beginning as a retweet that made me rethink and ultimately decide to write this blog because I love sports technology and the USA:
news 2 #Osama bin Laden RT @SportsTechieNET @TomJolly Best new tradition in sports: logging on #Twitter during live event 2 C wht is tweeted

See ya when I see ya, Sports Techie.
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