I can point to a specific date as to when I started to realize how much social media was changing the structure of news: June 17, 2009. On what was otherwise a slow news day in the sports world, Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love took to Twitter to announce that his coach, Kevin McHale, wouldn’t return next season.
In this instance, an athlete completely eliminated the middleperson and broke major news directly to thousands of fans. I had grown accustomed to seeing this type of news appear as “breaking news” on the bottom line of ESPN and attributed to a sports journalist like Marc Stein or Ric Bucher. But now, there was a platform where an athlete could easily make the announcement immediately after finding out and many people would learn the news shortly thereafter.
The content of Love’s tweet reveals one more characteristic about how social media has changed news delivery: “Today is a sad day … Kevin McHale will NOT be back as head coach next season.” Instead of finding out about McHale’s forced departure in a story filled with manufactured quotes, I was reading someone close to the situation explain the news in a much more personal manner. He was also reacting at the moment he found out, before he could consult with a PR specialist to craft out every word. This is in striking contrast to the types of statements usually released to journalists who break these types of stories. For example, when ESPN.com ran a story about McHale’s firing a few days later when it became official, it included this quote from Timberwolves’ owner Glen Taylor:
"I will be forever grateful for the work Kevin did in returning to his home state and assembling a team that made eight straight playoff appearances. Kevin brought an enormous amount of basketball talent and passion to our organization and I wish him nothing but the best."
Taylor probably means every word of that statement. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that Taylor didn’t say these words right after the decision was made.
Twitter isn’t the only social media website that has changed my relationship with professional athletes. In 2006, ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons wrote a story titled “The YouTube Hall of Fame.” One of the videos that made the list was a montage of highlights by former baseball and football star Bo Jackson.
Simmons pointed out that one of the reasons he loves YouTube is because it’s “the only place where forgotten superstars like (former NBA star) Shawn Kemp and Bo Jackson live on.” I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, and I believe that it’s not just the “forgotten” superstars who have benefitted from YouTube. I wasn’t born early enough to experience the Magic Johnson and Larry Bird era, but as a lifelong NBA fan I have been told repeatedly how great they were. Every once in a while, I would catch of clip of some of their best plays, but I had to work hard to get visual evidence of their magnificence. Now I can go to YouTube and instantly watch videos like this and this and see with my own eyes the work Magic and Larry did on the basketball court.
This all makes me wonder why Major League Baseball (MLB) continues to stick by their absurd YouTube policy. They regularly remove baseball videos from video sharing websites like YouTube because of copyright infringement. But the MLB values its place in American history more than any other league. How does providing fans with visual evidence of historic moments in baseball history hurt the MLB's brand? Wouldn’t it be good for the league to allow people like me to watch highlights of Roger Clemens’s 20-strikeout game against the Seattle Mariners in 1986? I don’t understand what the MLB has to lose by doing this. It might even make people think baseball is an exciting sport to watch.
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