How New Media are Used In Sports

New Media and Sports

New media includes a variety of communication platforms, most of them are Internet-based. They range from traditional Web sites and social networking Web sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) to sport Weblogs (i.e., blogs) and e-commerce systems. As of 2009 more than 1.7 billion people worldwide were using the Internet (Internet World Stats, 2010). Many of these users go online to access sports information. Sport Web sites such as ESPN.com, SportsLine.com, FoxSports.com, Sports.Yahoo.com, NBCSports.com, SI.com, SportingNews.com, and NFL.com frequently draw heavy traffic. Growth in recent years has been significant. The percentage of the North American population using the Internet was over 74% in 2009, a number that has grown by 134% since 2000 (Internet World Stats, 2010). The emergence of new media has already had a profound effect on how many sport communication professionals practice their profession, and it seems certain that more changes are on the way. One advantage that many sports organizations have already realized through the Internet is the ability to disseminate messages to a mass audience quickly and inexpensively without having to use mass media as the intermediary. Just a couple of years ago, sport media relations professionals were relied heavily on mass media to relay messages that originated with the sports organization through the utilization of news releases. If the media did not use the releases, the information simply would not be available to the public. Now, sport public relations practitioners can post that information on organizational Web sites where interested parties can access it at their convenience. Or the public relations professionals can use a distribution list to e-mail the information to interested parties who have previously provided their addresses to the organization. The options available to the sports public relations professionals offer a level of message control previously unobtainable in the field.

Additionally, the Internet provides a forum for a two-way flow of communication with the public. Many sports organizations are only now beginning to take advantage of this opportunity. Some sport managers are doing some simple but important things. For example, a number of extremely famous sports figures are now using blogs and microblogs (e.g., Twitter) to share information with the public and help update their fan base. Other sports superstars periodically set up chat sessions in which they answer questions and respond to comments from audience members. Of course, new technology also has a way of making things more complicated, and sport communication professionals are finding this to be true too. Media relations specialists, in particular, are dealing with a couple of challenging issues. First, the specialists are receiving more requests from bloggers for media credentials to events and interview access to players and coaches. Another issue that they are facing is the growing amount of non-credible information (e.g., false rumors about a sports organization) and unapproved credible information appearing on the Internet. The various issues, and others, just mentioned above demand sport public relations professionals to adapt their strategies as new technologies continue to develop and germinate.

Given the growing prevalence of technology in the field, one additional concern has begun to receive attention in recent years. Some sport communication professionals have become so reliant on technology that they may underuse the direct communication skills necessary to be effective (Battenfield & Kent, 2007). The ability to develop message content for online distribution is a powerful communication tool, informal interactions in the workplace, and telephone conversations with members of important publics remain essential for effective sports communication.

Interactive Media Platforms across Sports

Sports Betting

A Casino Sportsbook

Sports betting is the action of someone wagering certain amount of money on a sports game such as professionals and collegiate sports in order for a certain outcome to happen in order to win a certain amount of money. Many of these bets happens on official sportsqbook in Las Vegas and many casinos across the United States. In recent years, the legalization of sports betting in number of states in the United States has grown exponentially after the United States Supreme Court allowed New Jersey to be on professional and collegiate sports at the state’s casinos and racetracks. This gave the states power to override the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (Paspa), "which Congress passed in 1992 outlawing betting on amateur or professional athletes except in four states that already had operations."

As a result many states and professional sports leagues started to openly to accept sports betting after it was ban for many decades due to fixing-games incidents by formers players and professional harming the integrity of the game. The cultural point of view of sports betting has change completely, which was once forbidden is now one of the large growing industries. Many sport books platforms such as Fan-Duel and DraftKings has became the face of these movements, with many sport channels creating official sport betting shows that bring in analysts to call out their bets. The growing acceptance of sports betting and legalizing is also result from the billions of dollars of profits lost by official sports books and professional leagues, as "industry and law enforcement officials estimate that more than $150 billion is placed annually with illegal bookmakers and with offshore accounts"

This new media of betting on sports creates a new opportunity on how sports are views as everyone are analyzing and guessing what's the next winning outcome will be, as it has growing presence on social media and on television, as it allows anyone viewing sports a chance to part of the action.

Fantasy Sports

Fantasy Sports is an online game where participants draft professional players into a virtual team. The drafted teams compete based on the performance of the players in actual games. Each sport has a different algorithm in which scores are calculated, but in general, the player's statistical performance reflects how well a participant's fantasy team does collectively. Football is by far the most popular fantasy sport, followed by basketball.

With Fantasy Sports' developing popularity, there is an emerging market for Fantasy Sport league apps, such as Yahoo Fantasy, Draft Kings, and Rotowire. These apps facilitate communication amongst players of individual leagues and allow active participation with a refreshing user interface. In 2017, the fantasy sports industry generated over $3.2 billion in entry fees, while amassing over $335 million in annual revenue. It is projected to grow to about $14 billion in market revenue by 2020.

The increase in popularity has created a brand new market for television shows that primarily deal with Fantasy Sports issues and outcomes, and many major sports networks like ESPN and Fox Sports have dedicated in-season programming just for Fantasy Sports. In these shows, the hosts speak about potential outcomes, major trade deadline deals, possible changes to starting rotations due to player injuries, and rookie drafts. The Fantasy Show and Fantasy Football Now highlight these dedicated tv programs. Furthermore, many YouTube channels are being created every day to hold talk shows related to Fantasy Sports, similar to these TV programs. The Fantasy Footballers and DraftKings are the two of the popular Fantasy Sport YouTube channels.

Fantasy Football

ESPN Fantasy Football Logo

Fantasy football emerged in 1962 when Bill Winkenbach (Partial Owner of the Oakland Raiders) gathered some colleagues and created the first iteration of fantasy football. Each friend drafted players in the actual National Football League and competed based on weekly statistical outings.

Based on the original draft, most fantasy leagues follow a similar structure today with minor tweaks and changes. Each pass, run, catch, sack, interception, points allowed, etc. has a value and whichever team gains the most amount of points wins the week.

Modern-day technology has been implemented to calculate the projected points a given player would have in a certain week. Statistics from prior years, prior games, and outlook on the team's weekly depth chart are all calculated and taken into consideration to have a projected point. ESPN Fantasy has recently created a system to also project the values that reflect if a player has far surpassed his projection (boom) or has fallen way short of his projection (busted). This gives participants a better understanding of if a player is worth the statistical odds of starting/picking up or benching/dropping.

Overall, fantasy football has not changed much from its original inception in 1962. Most of the mechanics are the same. New Media has only made it easier to calculate, trade and have better inferences in weekly projections.

Multimedia & Live Streaming

Digital live streaming is a method used to deliver multimedia elements, usually video or audio, from a data streaming service provider. People use this method in order to receive content more quickly and in real-time, or the actual time during which the event is taking place. The content plays immediately rather than being saved to a hard drive and being played later. Live television will broadcast its contents over airwaves through a television signal. With streaming content, people do not have to download the entire video or digital audio before they start to play the content. It is a powerful platform that distributes roughly 25,000 live events annually and 10 million streams daily. With an enormous amount of bandwidth to support subscribers to assure productive time investment, they leverage their internal technologies with the "best in class" vendor relationships to provide the best digital solutions.

Popular Multimedia and Live streaming

VicSport Live provides an outlet for sports organizations and event promoters to stream live events on the internet. Designed to target sporting events around Australia. VicSport provides an end-to-end service that takes a sports event into ones living room and to customers handheld devices. Bring live streams of sports to each of the customers.

USSSA provides a variety of sources for all live streaming tournaments and events happening around USSSA. Each week and different time of the season USSSA Live bring a live stream of new events in all forms of sport. From baseball to basketball. Having different channels for each sport. For example, the Channels show the same sport, but the channels that are being brought to the customer are events from different countries or state and different activities appearing in the channels like for instance in baseball there is a channel that shows the views or fast pitches and other channels that shows the viewer slow pitches.

Mobile Web & Applications

MLBAM's Mobile capabilities encompass mobile web development, e-commerce applications, and alerts on smartphones and tablet platforms. This app is known as "MLB At Bat". It's one of the best top sports apps in the industry. It delivers groundbreaking mobile work for partners, designing dynamic performances, and presenting irresistible values to the fans. Some of the features the MLB at Bat presents are being able to access all the decisive replays of reviewed video clips and explanations. Another is being able to watch Watch 60fps video for unmatched high-quality streaming of select live MLB.TV broadcasts and highlight clips And as the year goes by there has been new features that have been added to the app such as 3D touch notification improvements and Ipad team pages, where one is able to see all the scores, news, and videos for your favorite team in one page.

Co-managed by Turner and the NBA, NBA League Pass is the league's product that lets users stream every game all season long. The product costs $199.99 for every team or $119.99 for one team, and the games can be watched on any device including mobile phones, tablets, or smart TV. The stream given by NBA League Pass for your mobile device has a customized Mobile View, which gives a special differentiated viewing option.

Social Media & Marketing

It develops cutting edge technology for integrating and managing initiatives and analytics for marketing, ticketing, e-commerce purposes. It helps users publish social content and collaborate with other fans.

Social media has also allowed players to create a brand for themselves like never before. Utilizing platforms like Twitter and Instagram, players such as Lebron James, Roger Federer, Cristiano Ronaldo have successfully developed their own brands and their own cult following thanks to their talent and also their marketability. Establishing one's self as a great player, combined with a good personality and staying out of trouble, players can secure themselves financially long after their playing career is over via branding themselves and partnering with various companies for endorsements. With new media, it is easy for players to become larger than life, by being able to be seen on social media and television platforms, rather than just on the playing field.

Snapchat

Snapchat Icon

Sports have become yet another feature in Snapchat's ever-changing dynamic. The application allows users to post "Live Stories" of content occurring during game time to a national platform. Although fans cannot watch an entire game via Snapchat, users can view a Live Story from the game. In these Live Story posts, they can see fan-shot videos of multiple plays all throughout the game. They can also view snaps made by athletes before or after a game. On the Discover channel, they can read about the stats of certain players, enabling a more in-depth personal view of the sport. They also show the highlights after a major game such as the NBA finals. There will be 10 seconds per video of the game from that night. "Snapchat itself has said that in 2015, more people watched college football on Snapchat than watched it on TV." Some people, nowadays, can not endure an entire lengthy game and will be satisfied with a few short videos on an application.

Facebook

Icon for Facebook

Facebook was one of the first social media platforms to exist and is the framework to many social media platforms that came into existence afterwards. The service exists on both mobile and computers, but in 2017, 79% of users were accessing the application through a mobile device. The constitution of the service displays a personalized newsfeed through the mixture of a community with accepted friends, followed pages, and liked content. Users are allowed to post updates regarding their thoughts and activities, allowing friends to engage with the post.

Facebook's integration of new media evolved the social media platform to include an entire market and its own ecosystem. Earning almost $2 billion in 2017, Facebook sat at the top of the social platform hierarchy. Facebook is also connected to many other services in which your Facebook profile can be used as login credentials for another server/service. This grants other companies access to subliminal information to personalize their services for you.

Instagram

Instagram Icon

Although very unlikely, Instagram has become the platform for the funniest and craziest plays from a powerful range of sports: college and professional football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and volleyball. Many accounts have been created like "GreatestHighlights", "SickCatches", and "BestCelebrations" along with certified accounts from athletes and teams to provide fans with content to share with family and friends. This enables fans to learn more about the games in a short sitting rather than watching the entire game and possibly missing the play due to different reasons. Not only can users see the most crucial plays that have made or break a team, but they can also see the lifestyle of their favorite athletes. Instagram fosters a place in which users can practically be apart of a lifestyle without actually physically being there. Whereas pre-social media people used to resort to waiting for SportsCenter on ESPN to find the latest and greatest highlights, now there is an immediate upload for the newest highlights that would not necessarily be on SportsCenter in the most popular go-to spot for highlights - HouseOfHighlights. In fact, this account became so big, that the sports website Bleacher Report actually bought out the account and is now "the spot" for the newest highlights.

LeBron James Using Instagram

Instagram has also become a popular tool for superstar athletes to communicate directly with their fans, without the need to go through old media as they've done in the past. LeBron James tops the list of most followers on Instagram for NBA players with over 51.2 million followers, with Stephen Curry (26.8 million) and Russell Westbrook (13.8 million) following the list. Interestingly, the top 8 players on this list have more combined followers than the next 51 players on the list combined, and 83% of the most followed NBA players on Instagram are of American nationality.

Twitter

Twitter App Icon

Twitter has been an incredible catalyst for how big sports have become. This year, one-fifth of all internet users are expected to have Twitter accounts. This number has grown from 15.2% in 2012 and is projected to rise to 24.2% by 2018. Every major sports team, league, and the association has a social media profile on Twitter. Sports fans will go on Twitter to have discussions related to sports or express their reactions to certain events. During 2013 50% of Tweets regarding TV in the United States, a total of 492 million Tweets were about sports events. Sports events comprised 12 of the Top 20 Most-Tweeted-About TV broadcasts during the year, according to Nielson. An example of a popular sports topic to discuss on Twitter would be the NBA Free Agency, where users can express their opinions on the signing of a certain player or talk about where would be the most likely place a player could end up in. Nearly every sports-related show or sporting event has a hashtag associated with it and it is displayed, on-screen, during the event or show. It drives engagement and creates a relationship with the audience that had not been possible several years ago. Now in 2019, the daily active users of Twitter rose to 11%, which speaks to the growing demand and practicality of a platform like Twitter where fans can connect with their sport idols and can share pre-game predictions or even just talk about the game with one another.

Twitter has also revolutionized the way sports are conducted at their very foundation; the recruitment of players. Staff and coaches are able to monitor players and are also 'tagged' and 're-tweeted' on a consistent daily basis by professionals as well as fans on player updates such as free-agency or even talent the public is excited to see a play on a grand stage. This form of two-way direct communication facilitates many aspects of the game that were tedious or administrative at the very least. With a rise in fan engagement, a more consistent link has been co-created with that team or organization, and a deeper sense of purpose and drive is attached to interacting with your favorite team. Twitter has allowed for team to post real time game updates for fans to see. Simple tweets from high school students asking the star of their favorite sports team to prom have captivated the attention of a whole nation and have turned dreams into a reality for some lucky fans of the game. New Media has created a bridge between these athletes and their fans that the world has never seen before and has also allowed for sports to become ingrained in people's lives.

Barstool Sports

Barstool Sports first started in 2003 as a print publication in Boston. Founder Dave Portnoy was a young sports fan gambler, and post graduate from University of Michigan. Portnoy was able to grow his small sports publication into a billion dollar media mogul. Portnoy used his "hot takes" and funny input on sports to grow his brand. Barstool has been able to provide a new look into sports reporting, it is no longer the ESPN old school statistics report. Barstool takes a closer look into the social lives of the players and super stars and provides an inside look. Barstool was bought by the Chernin Group in 2016. The investment was able to move the company to New York City and hire hundreds of employees. The employees do everything from blog, podcast, youtube and create merchandise. Barstool has used Instagram as their main source of media. Known for not shying away from controversy and posting content on sensitive topics has allowed their Instagram account to gain over 6 million followers.

Bleacher Report

The Bleacher Report was founded in 2007 by four sports fan: David Finocchio, Alexander Freund, Bryan Goldberg, and Dave Nemetz. It was developed by Turner for $175 million in 2012. The company has continued to see stable growth, refracting sports and sports culture to a largely millennial audience through its website and social channels. Bleacher Report is specifically concentrated on sports and sports culture. Bleacher Report takes your favorite teams and each major sport and catalogs them in a separate list for you. Stats are available from any major sports league for fantasy leagues. You will receive updates from each team once an article is published. Bleacher report drafts its own articles daily and allows for the reader to explore what is being said around the web about your team. Bleacher Report gives the user a chance to form a well-rounded opinion This application captures authentic moments at the intersection of sports and reveals it to the fans. It notifies people when something and/or someone is in action, is injured, gets traded and many more.

House of Highlights

House of Highlights is an Instagram page dedicated to displaying highlight reels of professional athletes and videos from fans. The page has over 15 million followers and was founded by Omar Raja. The page constantly pushes out content that shows replays of incredible plays from different athletes and bring fans up to date for those who may have missed them. In December 2015, Bleacher Report acquired House of Highlights, and the next couple of years, acquired sponsors and produced video shoes as well as a monty Twitter digital television show hosted by its original founder Omar Raja. In 2019, House of Highlights became the only sports media brand to surpass ESPN in followers, and in November of that year, House of Highlights became the most followed U.S. Sports Media account on Instagram. As of December 2020, House of Highlights had 20.4 million followers.

Omar Raja

Omar Raja (born 1994) is the founder of House of Highlights. Raja started the Highlight Factory (now called House of Highlights) after failing to find footages of LeBron James' return to the Cleveland Cavaliers on other media sites in 2014. Raja's new Instagram profile blew up exponentially - hitting over 500,000 followers within less than a year since its inception and over 10 millions in recent years. Noticing a cult following, the social media company Bleacher Report acquired Raja's House of Highlights and subsequently hired after Raja's graduation. In 2020, Raja was brought over to ESPN from Bleacher Report to increase ESPN's social media presence a"SportsCenter" Instagram account and as well providing new materials to it's platform.

Interactive Media in MLB

MLBAM

This serves as a platform of connection between players and fans. These types of media, across all leagues of sports, give fans the opportunity to stay updated with their favorite teams and players in real-time.

Jason Hayward making a spectacular catch

Advanced Media

MLBAM (MLB Advanced Media) is a full-service solutions provider of delivering world-digital experiences and distributing content through forms of interactive media. Their digital leadership and capabilities are a direct solution of an appreciation for designing dynamic functionality for web or mobile applications, and connected devices while integrating live games-on-demand multimedia and providing quality products for many fans across the globe.

Statistics & Data Applications

MLBAM deploys sophisticated software to monitor every pitch of every game throughout the season. MLBAM's uses various statistical engine driver wired and mobile products across all platforms, providing a real-time moment viewing experience: pitch-by-pitch trajectories, home away radio broadcast, player stats, box scores, scoreboards, standings, news, video, and many more.

One of the ways data is measured in MLB is through the application of Statcast. Statcast helps baseball players and teams understand what goes on behind every single pitch. Some of the application of Statcast is the prediction of the velocity of the ball, launch angle of the baseball when hit, distance the ball covers, how much a fielder moves to make a out, etc. This data system helps teams to make a prediction on the future trend of a player's development which will enable them to trade players that are suitable for one's team.

Interactive Media in the NFL

Player Tracking

The NFL has been utilizing Zebra Technologies' Radio Frequency Identification Device technologies in order to track player movement on the field. These tags are embedded into player's uniforms and allow coaches and fans alike to see the data visualized on any devices. This data is used by coaches to review routes and change their game plans and fans to find themselves more entwine with the action and real time stats of their players. RFIDs are most commonly found in stores and warehouses, where products and inventory need to be accounted for. Zebra Technologies has gone much further than that in so allowing the tags to keep track of player heartrate, speed and form. These devices are being further developed to be used during practices and games to spot and prevent injuries to professional athletes.

Technology on the Sideline

In 2013, Microsoft paid the NFL $400 million dollars as part of a 5 year deal for teams to use their Surface tablets on the sidelines during games. With a tablet, coaches and players are able to see the plays that they want to run on offense and defense. Before the Surface was implemented, stacks of black-and-white photos needed to be printed and attached to a binder in order for them to analyze the opposing team’s defense and strategize plays. Now with the Surface they can mark up the plays or even draw up their own. It offers a winning advantage because teams can respond nearly in real-time, since these colored images appear faster on the tablet than the printed page. This leads to efficiency, seeing that it enables quicker decision making on the field, where every second counts.

With the use of a tablet now, new problems come up like system freezes that occur as well as network issues. New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick has concerns with the consistency in the performance of these tablets, as there were multiple instances where it has malfunctioned during their games. Microsoft responded by saying that these issues were not related to the tablet itself, but rather external factors. They are aware of the challenges ahead and are optimistic that they can resolve these IT issues, so teams can rely on these devices.

Live Streaming Thursday Night Football

In 2016, the NFL teamed up with social media giant Twitter to live stream all Thursday Night Football games. This allowed any user to watch the game live through the app. Most Thursday Night games were previously only available through the NFL television network. For the 2017 season, the NFL has partnered with Amazon and their Prime Video service to stream the Thursday Night Football Games. In 2018, the NFL, continuing their partnership with Amazon, allowed one of Amazon's streaming websites, Twitch.tv, to stream Thursday Night football games for free for anyone to watch.

Influence of New Media on College Recruitment of American Football Players

University of Oregon Ducks

College Football has exploded in terms of popularity within the past few years as American Football reaches even wider demographics and expands its influence as a major sport within countries outside of the United States with the expansion of the digital era in which we live. College athletes are specifically targeted and scouted from a very young age in hopes of gaining an advantage over competing schools by college football recruits. New media has heavily influenced the recruiting process due to the integration of social media and the real-time statistics that can be calculated almost instantaneously during combines and practices. Social media has allowed for noticeable change in the process of recruiting particularly in the division of player monitoring for explicit language, or unethical behavior / practices that could have repercussions later on for the organization. Behaviors such as rude gestures, fowl language or bias pretext pose the threat of fan retaliation of could convey the message that these prospective athletes are involved in extraneous activities where as their intentions should be focuses primarily on the sport. Before social media's existence, coaches would struggle with player's behaviors or activities outside of the organization but with the integration of social media in our everyday lives, players and staff are under more scrutiny than ever and a slip-up or act of defilement while representing the organization can cause a tremendous turmoil in a season.

Another way new media has altered the process of college recruitment of high school athletes is with real-time stats which allow college recruiters to gauge the athletic capabilities of athletes in a more efficient and effective manner. New Media technologies allow coaches and football analysts to interact with one another at a higher capacity by sharing stats and records of prospective talent across the country at a moments notice and interactive platforms allows coaches to see the difference in the slightest reaction times of athletes with a side-by-side comparison which can make all of the difference in the world when a game is on the line.

Interactive Media in the NBA

Player Tracking

SportVU camera at the Barclays Center

The NBA has been using advanced in-game tracking technology to increase statistical data. This tracking technology is provided by a system called SportVU. Each NBA arena has 6 cameras that monitor each player. The cameras receive real-time data that are then fed into a proprietary software and translated into understandable statistics. Coaches, players, and analysts can use these advanced metrics to evaluate team performance. The general public also has access to most of this data on the NBA website. Starting in the 2017-2018 season, the NBA will end its current agreement with SportVU and switch to a different tracking company called Second Spectrum. Which is an improvement to the previous device. Second Spectrum offers video feedback where one is able to see a birds-eye view of the team as well as give detailed reports of the statistics gathered with the use of Second Spectrum. Having profiles of the team's defenses as well as the offenses that statistics has portrayed. The data collected by the tracking technology can be viewed on the official NBA website.

Social Media

The NBA has a major presence within the social media world. It currently has the youngest TV audience of any professional US sports league. The NBA has been able to use social media as a tool to engage its fans and attract international interest. On its official league accounts, it has over 66 million combined followers. This number is twice as much as the NFL league account and over 4 times the amount that the MLB has.

The rise and spread of in-game highlight footage is one of the main reasons why the NBA has found success through social media. During and after games, fans create clips of the best shots and dunks using short video hosting platforms like Gfycat and Streamable. These clips, which are usually no longer than 30 seconds, appear on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. The videos receive a massive amount of views through sharing, liking, and tweeting. While other professional sports leagues like the MLB and NFL have issued copyright and takedown notices to those who post such clips, the NBA has not only allowed its content to be shared but openly encourages it. David Levy, who is the president of Turner Sports (a company that broadcasts NBA games), has attributed this to NBA commissioner Adam Silver's willingness to adapt to a changing environment, saying “He understood Instagram. He understood Snapchat. He gets the fact that fans are fans, and you need to fish where the fish are.”

One of the most buzz-worthy events in the history of social media occurred during a game between the Golden State Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder in February 2016. The game featured a multitude of magnificent highlights that was capped off by a game-winning, buzzer-beating three-pointers by the Warrior's Stephen Curry in overtime. This shot caused an explosion of social media activity and had over 60 million views on Facebook alone. NBA superstar LeBron James reacted to this game on Twitter and received over 86,000 retweets and 95,000 likes.

Longer compilation videos, such as those that contain in-game highlights for an individual game to season highlights for an individual player, have also become popular. These videos allow fans who might have missed out on the action to see the best parts in an organized sequence of clips. These types of videos are mainly posted to YouTube where they are shared in places like team fan pages and forums. For example, a highlight compilation video containing all the three-pointers that NBA player Stephen Curry hit during the 2014-2015 season has already amassed over 2 million views on YouTube.

The dawn of the social media era has been a blessing and a curse for athletes. If you remember, Shaquille O’Neal, announced his retirement through Twitter. He didn't use the traditional way of telling the sports reporters but did so through social media. It seems he was a regular guy like us, wanting the average human being to know first. Then there are times where the digital media can be unforgivable to athletes. Athletes are now prone to be ridiculed by the fans, reporters, and analyst if they post anything that seems controversial on social media. Or whether a post that was supposed to be confidential is released to the public. For example, there was a time NBA player Draymond Green posted a not safe for work (NSFW) photo on Snapchat in which he said it was accidental. It was an embarrassing moment for the NBA player. These days, athletes are subject to be followed around everywhere/every day whether it’s through Twitter or Snapchat. These new technologies have started to link the lines between the athlete and the fan, placing an average human being in the everyday lives of their favorite celebrity-athlete.

Disadvantage of Social Media in NBA

Social media is a big factor in the life of the NBA and its players. Every NBA players either have social media accounts or use to have one. The most popular social media for the NBA are Twitter and Instagram. It is where they connect with their fans or try to speak out about certain topics. Social media is a doubled-edged sword in the NBA. Sometimes, too much social media can hurt an NBA player's career. Occasionally, old tweets made by a player before they entered the league can resurface, leading to potential controversies. Social media can also bring many anxieties to the life of basketball players. Most NBA players are in fact, unhappy in their current situation. Money does not buy you happiness. And social media might be one of the causes.

The NBA commissioner had stated that "Players' unhappiness and anxiety is one that is blamed for ills across society: social media." Since many NBA players are living in the life of social media, especially on Twitter and Instagram, it had brought them much negativity in their personal and professional life. Social media had led players to expose to many cases of abuse from anonymous users. There are tons of hate comments across social media. And it is all open for NBA players to see and experience. These hate comments sometimes can impact a player's mental health. It will make players suffer through a constant loop where they have to agree back or prove themselves that the haters are wrong them. This had mane many NBA players extremely self-conscious about their actions and language.

Six-time NBA all-star from the Los Angeles Clippers, Paul George, came out stating his struggles with mental health, specifically depression and anxiety. Social media constantly bashed George for his poor performance in the playoffs. He was even given the nickname "Pandemic P."

Many players who give substandard performances are subjected to widespread humiliation on popular social media platforms such as Twitter. Perhaps due to the nature of sports competition, underwhelming performances by popular players serve as a moments of schadenfreude for their biggest critics. Players often note the destructive element of widespread criticism on their production, especially in crucial moments such as the NBA Playoffs. Four-time NBA Champion LeBron James, one of the premier NBA players who has spoken out about this effect, regularly withdraws from social media during the entirety of the NBA Playoffs.

All in all, Social Media can affect NBA players negatively and positively. By utilizing social media to connect with fans, develop a brand, and promote various ideas, organizations, or products a NBA Player can use their fame and attention very effectively. However, on the flip side as mentioned before Social Media can deeply entangle NBA players into troublesome situations. Whether it's emotional factors, personal privacy, or other things being so connected to the world can be impactful on an NBA player.

The Boardroom

NBA Player-Created Platform and Contents

With the rapid growth of social media platforms in the past 10 years and the growing influence of social media on the NBA, it has lead to the creation of new NBA players-created or leaded platforms or streaming contents. Several talk shows that has been created in the past 5 years that are led by or host by NBA players are "The Shop" and "More Than An Athlete", led by NBA superstar LeBron James. "The Boardroom" lead by NBA superstar Kevin Durant which focus on “the evolution of sports business through the minds of athletes, sports executives and tech moguls alike." and many current and retire players that host their own podcast on multiple streaming platforms. Many of these platforms focus on athletes to give personal testimonials and analysis about the culture around the game itself while ordering first-person stories.

Wearable Technology

2017 Houston Astros sign stealing scandal

The Houston Astros sign stealing scandal resulted from revelations that members of the Houston Astros organization in Major League Baseball (MLB) stole signs of opposing teams using technology during the 2017 and 2018 seasons.

For years, other MLB teams had suspected the Astros of stealing signs. Details about the team's activities were first publicly reported by journalists Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich for The Athletic in November 2019. Mike Fiers, a pitcher who played for the Astros in 2017, told The Athletic that the organization used a video camera in center field to film the opposing catchers' signs to the pitchers. Astros players or team staffers watching the live camera feed behind the dugout would then signal to their batter what kind of pitch was coming. MLB opened an investigation into the allegations and in January 2020 confirmed that the Astros illegally used a camera system to steal signs during the 2017 regular season and postseason, during which they won the World Series, as well as in part of the 2018 season. MLB found no evidence of illicit sign stealing in the 2019 season, in which the Astros advanced to and lost the World Series.

The new allegations, and perhaps the most reprehensible of them all, are the most recent accusations that Astros' batters were literally carrying electronic buzzers to the plate during at-bats. The buzzers were taped somewhere onto the players’ body and would vibrate a certain number of times depending on what pitches were expected to be thrown – after, of course, streaming center-field camera footage of the signs and catcher set-up would be shown on monitors outside the Astros clubhouse and then directly related to the batter all in real time.

As a result, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and field manager A. J. Hinch were suspended for the entire 2020 season for failing to prevent the rules violations. The Astros were fined the maximum allowable $5 million and forfeited their first- and second-round picks in the 2020 and 2021 drafts. No players were punished because they had been given immunity by MLB in exchange for their cooperation. The Astros subsequently fired both Luhnow and Hinch on the day their suspensions were announced. MLB's investigation also determined that Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora helped mastermind the Astros' sign stealing while serving as Hinch's bench coach in 2017; Boston and Cora mutually parted ways the following day. Carlos Beltrán was the only Astros player from 2017 who was specifically named in the report; he had been hired to manage the New York Mets in November 2019 but parted ways with the team after the results of MLB's investigation were announced.

The sanctions against the Astros were the most severe that MLB has ever issued against a member club, and are among the most severe sanctions for in-game misconduct in baseball history. A Wall Street Journal article published a few weeks after the MLB report described previously unknown details about the sign-stealing operation and reported that it originated during the 2016 season, a broader scope than reported by MLB. After the scandal broke, players on the 2017 Astros apologized to varying degrees. The team's actions were heavily criticized by players on other MLB teams. The scandal dominated the 2019–2020 offseason and the start of 2020 spring training. The scandal also led to lawsuits against the Astros and MLB.

Used in MLB: Performance Tracking

motusBASEBALL™

Before the start of the 2016 season, Major League Baseball became the first sports league to approve the use of wearable technology during games. These devices measure the bio-metrics of players in game. The first two devices that the MLB approved were the motusBASEBALL™ and Zephyr Bioharness.

The motusBASEBALL™ is a device that is put into a player's sleeve or on top of their batting glove. For pitchers it measures the stress that is being applied on their elbows, which could help lower the percentage of elbow injuries that pitchers and batters are likely to sustain. The device also provides batters feedback on their swing mechanics as well as informing them of their hot zones where they perform well and cold zones where they struggle to get hits.

The Zephyr Bioharness is a monitoring system that collectively monitors heart rate and oxygen levels. The device is attached to the player's chest in order to collect accurate data. The system determines a player's fatigue which is a critical factor in evaluating performance. However, the data cannot be seen until after the game has ended, to prevent managers from using it to determine whether or not to take out a pitcher.

Used in the NBA: Biometric Data

Matthew Dellavedova wearing Whoop in-game

In the past NBA players have worn devices while in-game, however they were illegally wearing it without the league's consent. The Whoop is a wrist strap that tracks your strain, recovery, and sleep. Since then the NBA has indicated on the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement that players won’t be able to wear it in-game, but that teams may request a player to use it in practice on a voluntary basis, but these wearables have to be cleared for use first. These devices also track workload, so players can understand how much they are straining their bodies and prevent overtraining. The data retrieved from these devices can provide information on their optimal training balance, which would lead to a lower chance of injury. It will increase the longevity of an athlete’s career since their health can be monitored throughout the season.

Used in the NFL: Protective Gear

ZERO1

Football is a full-contact sport where helmets and pads are worn, however injuries still occur due to the nature of the game. Concussions are a serious issue that the NFL faces and there have been lawsuits filed by former players for brain injuries linked to repeated concussions. The Zero1 football helmet has multiple layers consisting of a unique outer shell, which will slow the impact forces of head-on collisions. It is designed to reduce the risk of head injuries sustained by players. There is also a core layer that is beneath the outer shell, which contain hundreds of flexible columns that bend and act like shock absorbers. This layer is made of polymer and it absorbs the damage of the force of hits to the head. The Zero1 and other similar helmets have been laboratory tested by experts appointed by the NFL, and the results showed that the Zero1 performed the best. It has been announced that more than 25 NFL teams will be wearing the Zero1 helmet during organized team activities that are scheduled in the off-season. Another wearable technology used by NFL teams is the OptimEyeS5, from Catapult an Australian-based tech company, is a tracker that uses GPS technology to monitor performance and analyze the data, so coaches and trainers can make work rates more efficient for players, preventing injuries. This device tracks the movements of their body during games and practice, where they receive accurate data since it is connected to a satellite system.

NBA Analytics: Changing the game

Daryl Morey

Sports Analytics is changing the way professional sporting teams are planning for major sporting events. Advanced analysis and predictive modeling are used to outperform regular custom/legacy analysis. From 2016 - 2022, the sports analytics forecast estimates a massive increase of 40.1% and a potential of almost $4 billion dollars by 2022. The sports world will forever be changed through the use of analytics which allows the world of sports to keep on improving its capabilities of using sports analytics as a tool to improve their win rate.

The use of artificial intelligence and the state of art Machine Learning is able to provide insight into the sports world that can top traditional analysts' methods. The rise of these tools has become a major asset to sports teams willing to adopt these tools to make their teams have the best chance of success in the future. Major players in the analytical world include the likes of Microsoft which has pushed the sporting world into using their technology to better the sporting world. Microsoft technology has transformed the way Real Madrid, one of the greatest football clubs, is able to operate their club in performance, fitness, and relationships.

One such tool used is the predictive analysis, which is able to figure out the insights of the opponents during game time and provide artificial intelligence-based answers on how to combat against teams. Machine learning models help predict which players perform better at which position and allow the model to be built on stats as the bases and how opponents perform in previous matches. These analyses include:

Player analysis: Analyzing training patterns of players and diet chart on their fitness level to allow them to get in their ideal shape for the season.

Team analysis: With the team stats from previous matches, state-of-the-art machine learning models like deep neural networks, SVMs are examples of models used by team management to figure out the winning combinations with their probabilities.

Analysis data goes beyond team management in competition, it can be expanded into fan insight on strategies to handle social media and figure out patterns and form clusters/ groups using clustering algorithms, within fan base and run campaigns on targetted groups. These factors will attract the fans the most and allow new fans to become engaged and retain the older ones.

The advantage of insight data can be tremendous as the Houston Rockets have pushed the use of analytics under the leadership of former general manager Daryl Morey. Daryl was in charge of creating the offense that can allow the team to compete for championships and after years of unsatisfactory success, the team needed to find themselves in a new direction. The 3 point revolution has been influenced by the victories of the Golden State Warriors who have brought in the small ball era through their 3 championships and getting to the finals 5 years in a row. The Houston Rockets took this ideology one step further with "Moreyball", a style of play that generates 3s and layups, and uses midranges as the last option. In the 2016-17 season and the 2017-2018 season, the rockets have had tow of the most efficient offensive seasons in NBA history. This is no coincidence, as the analytical method has gained prominence over the past several years, other teams have taken notice. Every year for the past 5 years, players shot a record number of three-point shots. The three-point shot and the layups are the most efficient shots in basketball and taking those specific shots over time will allow you to obtain the best offense.

Here is a link to the shot chart of the Houston Rockets in the last season: https://i.redd.it/bbs0fzoy27c21.jpg

Analytics is shifting the method of the way teams prepare against opponents and allow team managers to gain insight using artificial intelligence to create a plan of attack to fight for the championship.. The NBA as an organization is dealing out the partnership with the technology-based company to gather larger points of data for teams and the ability to retain the best talent. SportsVU tracking system is a technology coming that captures the value of tracking data for the optional way to provide scalable, objective, and advanced analysis through broadcast video. This company has installed cameras in basketball arenas to track the real-time positions of players and the ball at 25 times per second. Stats Perform brought optical tracking to professional sports and the NBA, and now the company is pushing advancements in computer vision and active learning. . According to Daryl Morey "it works. The bottom line is that sports are about decision-making, and the science shows over and over that if you use objective data and analysis in decision-making, you make better decisions.". The rise of analytics is shifting the makeup of teams who try to utilize the technology in their favor, only time will tell if a fully analytical team is able to obtain the ultimate goal of a champion.

Sports Blogs

TrueHoop

TrueHoop is a blog that covers the sport of basketball, primarily the National Basketball Association. The blog, which has been in operation since May 15, 2005, was one of several blogs honored with the 2005 "Best of the Web award" issued by Forbes magazine. TrueHoop was run solely by Henry Abbott and was later purchased by ESPN in February of 2007 after garnering high praise from numerous sources. Abbott joined ESPN and continued to head the blog. The idea of the TrueHoop network is to ensure that every NBA team received quality local coverage. Local newspapers traditionally used a lot of “fluffed up” stories just to maintain margins, and national media coverage often times fails to go in-depth to attain accurate coverage for lesser-market teams. TrueHoop’s response was to create and support local bloggers who write about their own teams. These writers watch every game, know their team in and out, and are not pressured to just pump out quantity over quality by their employers. The result, in theory, would be accurate, in-depth coverage for all 30 NBA teams.

Each team’s individual blog is headed by a group of “professional bloggers.” In this win/win/win proposition, the bloggers have a chance to monetize their efforts, fans get the information they want and deserve, and ESPN gets to put their name at the center of it. Thanks to the web, any writer with a measure of dedication, talent, and insight can be found and read (whether or not they have some crony to help them get hired in this tough business).

I have probably read as many basketball articles and blog posts as anyone over the last three-plus years, and I can tell you that there is fantastic work out there, and some of the smartest, most creative, fastest, and fascinating work is outside the mainstream media. In my mind, if you were doing an honest compendium of the best sportswriting of these last couple of years, you would simply have to include some blog posts. -Henry Abbott

The TrueHoop network currently contains local blogs for 21 of the 30 NBA teams.

Atlanta: http://hawkshoop.com/

Brooklyn: http://brooklynsfinestblog.com/

Boston: http://www.celticshub.com/

Charlotte: http://queencityhoops.com/blog/

Denver: http://www.roundballminingcompany.com/

Detroit: http://pistonpowered.com/

Houston: http://www.red94.net/

LA (Clippers): http://clipperblog.com/

LA (Lakers): http://www.forumblueandgold.com/

Miami: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/miamiheat/

Milwaukee: http://www.bucksketball.com/

Minnesota: http://www.awolfamongwolves.com/

New Orleans: http://www.bourbonstreetshots.com/

New York: http://knickerblogger.net/

Oklahoma City: http://dailythunder.com/

Philadelphia: http://hoop76.com/

Phoenix: http://valleyofthesuns.com/

Sacramento: http://cowbellkingdom.com/

Toronto: http://raptorsrepublic.com/blog/

Utah: http://saltcityhoops.com/

Washington: http://www.truthaboutit.net/

Players' Tribune

The Players' Tribune

The Players’ Tribune, founded by former New York Yankees baseball player Derek Jeter, is a new media company that provides athletes with a platform (from videos to podcasts to written pieces) to connect directly with their fans, in their own words. Launched back in October, 2014, this platform allows athletes from all sports, ranging from baseball to football, to talk about their thoughts and experiences. This is published through first person stories because usually a person will overlook what athletes will write sometimes. This feels just the athletes are one of us, talking and writing on a blog, providing a sports conversation with the fans. US basketball star Kobe Bryant who recently retired announced his retirement through the Players’ Tribune with a written piece instead of turning to the traditional media outlet. In this written piece, Kobe Bryant used it to share his experience on his storied 20-year NBA career. NBA two-time most valuable player Steve Nash announced his retirement on the Players’ Tribune. Boston all-time great baseball player David Ortiz announced his retirement on the Tribune as well.

Another recent event that occur was NBA superstar Kevin Durant leaving his now called former team Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors and announced the move on the Players’ Tribune. Instead of calling a press conference or talking to a reporter, Durant posted an editorial on the Tribune. This platform is changing how sports news is being conveyed. Usually sport athletes has to talk to media outlet to convey their message to the public. Now athletes can get their own message out without media outlet might altering the messages.

Many athletes have utilized this platform just to communicate with their fans directly and know that what they are saying is coming directly from the source. They have also said that this is a revolutionary outlet for them to just be themselves.

Uninterrupted

UNINTERRUPTED

UNINTERRUPTED is a multimedia platform that was created by NBA Superstar LeBron James and his longtime friend Maverick Carter back in 2015. This was created to give the players a chance to upload small clips on there a smartphone about anything the athlete wants to talk about. UNINTERRUPTED focus on 3 different types of media which are video content, documentaries, and entertainment. This platform really allows for the athletes not only from the NBA but from across all sports to really express themselves in their own way about anything its not only for current players but also allows for retired players to chime in as well. UNINTERRUPTED as a platform is also partnered with Bleacher Report which allows the videos that are being created by the players to be shown to the fans.

SB NATION

SB Nation (Sports Blog Nation) is a sports news website owned and operated by Vox Media (formerly SportsBlogs, Inc.). Established in 2005, the site comprises 320 blogs covering individual professional and college sports teams, and other sports-oriented topics. The site operates from Vox’s offices just off Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, as well as Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.

SB Nation is a way for sports fans to write and share opinions with other sports fans. The most common features on SB Nation are written by freelance writers who love their team so much that they want to share their opinion and have discussions with other fans. Home to over 300 individual team blogs, sports junkies can get their fix on just about any hot topic in the sports world. Comments can be left on any written piece, to which users can create their own usernames and respond to other users who are also reading the same article. The most popular SB Nation blogs vary throughout the year, because different sports are in season at different times in the year, so it is no surprise that there is something for every sports fan on this blog space.

ACE Media

ACE Media

ACE Media also known as Athlete Content and Entertainment was created back in September 2015 by the National Football League Player's Association. ACE Media delivers original sports-lifestyle content across all genres and platforms using the NFLPA’s media rights, and leveraging over 1,500 active NFL players. Though ACE Media was created by the NFLPA for the NFL players to use it is like UNINTERRUPTED in that allows players from other sports including the NBA, NFL, NHL, U.S. Soccer. ACE Media has been to produce and facilitate over 750 pieces of content from 350 players from the different sports.

UNSCRIPTD

UNSCRIPTD

UNSCRIPTD is a company that was created in 2013 by former tennis star Andre Agassi, former Nike executives Brent Scrimshaw and Ben Crowe, and former BuzzFeed CRO Andy Wiedlin. The company was created to allow videos and content to be placed into one spot for people to see. That was their first objective as a company but now they have steered into a different direction and they use media and technology like their software to give there audience something different. That different content is the view of the players in a unfiltered scene were what the players are saying is in it original cut and they are free to express their mind to hearts content. UNSCRIPTD and UNINTERRUPTED though they similar content they have a big difference with that unfiltered content and the fact that the videos that are posted are no checked before being uploaded so that they keep that original feel.

The Undefeated

THE UNDEFEATED

The Undefeated is a ESPN owned and operated sports and pop culture websites that focus on the relationship between race, sports and culture and how they all intersect. The site describes themselves as a place were they "enlighten and entertain with innovative storytelling, original reporting and provocative commentary" as they're two mottos are "not conventional" and "never boring." The platform is aim towards African Americans and all sports fans to understand the culture and related issues of black athletes and their communities by using innovated long-form and short-form storytelling, as well as provocative commentary and original reporting.

The Undefeated has been an important platform that connects athletes and important personal with the local communities and focus on hardships that they all face. Retire NBA superstar Michael Jordan released an exclusive statement on The Undefeated stating he will donate $2 million dollars to different organizations to improve police-community relations on HUne 25th, 2016. On August, 2015, at a South Side YMCA in Chicago, The Undefeated brought in several Chicago basketball such as Dwyane Wade, Isiah Thomas, and several sport analyst analysts to hold a town hall meeting called "An Undefeated Conversation: Athletes, Responsibilities and Violence." Another notable achievement for this platform was when it hosted a forum with President Obama at the North Carolina A&T State University on October 11, 2016. The forum was called "The Undefeated Conversation with President Obama: Sports, Race and Achievement, as The Undefeated was able to create a platform to allow many college students to hear about the the many setbacks that help shape President Obama.

The name for The Undefeated cwas inspired by a passage by Maya Angelou, who was an American poet, author and civil rights leader, “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”