Banning Twitter is the easy way out for college coaches
Social media is part of college. The most prominent social media platform was invented at a college. By a college student. For college students.
It’s engrained in the college culture, and is a central means of communication for people in their late teens and early 20s.
The problem, however, is when those college kids using social media are high profile athletes who generate millions of dollars for their college institutions. Then things get a little more complicated.
To deal with the challenges of (student) athletes using social media–specifically Twitter–an increasingly popular strategy for college coaches has been to simply ban athletes from tweeting. It’s the easiest and most painless approach to control what information players put out there for public eyes to see.
ESPN’s new social media policy: Don’t break news on Twitter
ESPN gets flak for just about everything they do. Fair or not, the “Worldwide Leader” has their every move questioned, critiqued and analyzed, but that’s the price that comes with sitting at the top of the sports food chain.
The company’s updated social media policy is no different.
Soon after ESPN released its amended social networking policy for talent and reporters, the Twittersphere took the company to task–specifically for one guideline.