Biggest Twitter Fails in Sports History

Twitter currently has over 300 million users and thousands of athletes use twitter every day!  You can find out who by going to www.tweeting-athletes.com.  Have you ever tweeted and then quickly realized that you messed something up beyond just misspelling a word?  Well now is your chance to feel at ease because there are many athletes who have made even greater mistakes costing them money and even suspension and expulsion.  So sit back, relax, and enjoy some of the biggest Twitter fails in sports history!

#1. The Bengals wide receiver, Chad Ochocinco, was hit with a fine of $25,000 for tweeting this during a game.  He later pleaded with the NFL to get the fine waived and had no success.

#2. Ozzie Guillen, the Chicago White Sox Manager, got on twitter after a game to tweet about an umpire being ejected.  He was hit with a 2 game suspension and a $20,000 fine.

The tweet: @OzzieGuillen: "This one going to cost me a lot money. This is patetic Today a tough guy show up a yankee stadium"

#3. DJ Gardner, an ex-Mississippi State Basketball player was kicked out of school after tweeting some asterisked profanities.  He was kicked out of school immediately.

#4. Orlando Magic's Dwight Howard tweeted this after a game and received a gift basket of Beano from his teammates the next day. Some may say this is why Howard is always open in the paint!

#5. Onward State's false information regarding the death of Penn State Ex-Coach Joe Paterno which was picked up by CPSSports.com before being verified.  The managing editor resigned immediately.

#6. Sleeping during a team meeting?  That will result in being waived by the team as Devin Thomas of the Washington Redskins found out in 2010 when this Twitpic surfaced.

Want to see even more?  You can check out a complete list of 100 by going here.  This should be a good reminder to everyone, athlete or not, to make sure you are using social media responsibly.  Twitter is public!

Have a great week everyone and Happy Monday!

The Australian Open is Acing Digital Media

The 2012 Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament is said to be the most digitally connected major sporting event of all time.

Qualifying play began on Wednesday and tournament play officially begins tomorrow as the first Grand Slam tournament of 2012 kicks off.  So what are they doing to be so "digital"?

The Australian Open has a Slamtracker that is providing real-time updates of qualifying play by using a database called the Australian Open Vault (visit by clicking here).  The AOTV Vault allows fans to explore full-length matches dating all the way back to 1998, take sneak peeks at some of the best rallies, shots, and match points in history, and look at stats by filtering for players, years, championship matches, comebacks, or great upsets.

That's not all though!  Tournament officials have stated that they will be tweeting from the @AustralianOpen Twitter feed 24 hours a day through the finals on January 29.  The official hashtag of the tournament and for this competition is #ausopen.  Also, a certain amount of fans will be selected as "Fan-bassadors" by proving that they are particularly active online and share a wealth of tennis knowledge.

What else?  The Australian Open has an official Fan Centre.  The idea of the Fan Centre is to engage fans as much as possible throughout the tournament.  There is a Fan Centre Social Leaderboard that is launching tomorrow (Monday).  This means that when someone tweets about an athlete or chooses to 'like' them on Facebook, they will be increasing that player's social media ranking.  Also in the Fan Centre is a predictor game where fans can select their picks for daily matches and see how they are comparing in predictions to their friends, families, and colleagues.  There is a trivia game that can be played by fans of all ages and levels of knowledge.  You can play against friends or against complete strangers and by entering the game you have a chance of winning Australian Open giveaways.  There are many more opportunities through the Fan Centre so be sure to check them out by clicking here!

The digital manager for Tennis Australia, Kim Trengrove, said "we're kind of tapping into people's competitiveness as fans as well as their love for the players.  Our overriding goal is to increase interest in tennis... Ultimately, we want to get people playing the sport too, and our goal is to get 4 million people playing here by 2016."

To sum up the extraordinary coverage on digital media by the Australian Open, here is a recap:

1. Slamtracker providing real-time updates of qualifiers
2. Live tweeting 24 hours a day
3. Engaging fans by recruiting "Fan-bassadors"
4. Using the Fan Centre to excite fans on a variety of levels
5. And so much more!

So when you're watching the Australian Open during the next two weeks (which I hope you all do!), be sure to tweet and/or 'like' your favorite athletes to increase their presence on the official Fan Centre Social Leaderboard!

The Beginning of Blogging

Well this is something new- I am going to be blogging for my Digital Advertising class.  Not only am I doing this for a class project, I am also doing it so that I can learn more about the connection of Sports and Social Media and can share what I learn with all of you.  You may be wondering why I chose that connection; I mean of course ESPN has a twitter account and athletes have Facebook fan pages, but there is more.  There are many sport related issues, topics, and interesting phenomenons that have to do with social media and marketing.  As a Sports Marketing major and a tech-junky, I have always been interested in how businesses (especially in the sports world) can benefit from social media.  You may be thinking that we already all know about social media and that there is nothing else to learn.  False.  Keeping up with the trends of social media and the sports world could constitute as a full time job.  New trends and breakthroughs are occurring every minute and I hope to share some of those with you throughout this semester and for the rest of my Sports Marketing career.

So jump on the bandwagon with me and join me for the ride!