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Conan does a funny piece on the ridiculousness of Twitter, his celebrity twitter tracker. Some big name stars, two NBA players, and once former teammates, Shaq and Steve Nash are big tweeters. They seem to use it to their advantage, updating fans on charities or events they are involved in, or as a way to bypass the media. And now MLS soccer players are getting in on the tweeting trend, or American professional soccer players I should say, if you include Freddy Adu and Jozy Altidore. Surprisingly, Houston has the most MLS players with twitter accounts, with a total of six. You’d think Dominic Kinnear would crack down on this. Couldn’t they be doing better and more productive things? Perhaps training. But they could be doing worse and there’s not much to do in Texas anyway. Really though, you’d think the team with the Twitter accounts might come from San Jose, since they’re so near Silicon Valley, or a city like New York, and not the hot Texas City of Houston, where it seems Ching posts regularly about how hot it is. Now MLS has the greatest soccer Tweeted of them on in their ranks. The lion. Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Who backs up his trash talk and tweets.
Twitter is an odd thing in general. There have always been blogs; players could have just have easily written short tweet like posts year ago. But I guess Twitter made things simpler and easier. They set some rules – you only have 140 characteristics to say what you want to say. And twitter is an odd thing for professional sports figures to be using. It’s really a marketing tool. Shouldn’t their agent hire some kid to post tweets for them? For instance, how hard is it to write: “Just ate my pre-game meal of pasta. Ready to rumble.” That sample tweet could be used for 90% of the professional players out there, and for any professional sport. In truth though, I think of the true fan or young kid who idolizes a player. They want to do whatever their idol is doing. They want to emulate their idol. Twitter is just another way to follow that player – their idol. But when most tweets have no importance or insight what so ever, what is it all worth? Again, it’s about marketing and fan base and brand and money. Twitter does give some genuineness to the sports world though. Rather than the tried and true cliché chirped out to reporters after a win, ‘I couldn’t have done it without my teammates,’ we get some fresh and authentic thoughts from a player. And even if it’s nearly indecipherable slang at times, it is real. It’s not like some Bull Durham line: I’m-just-trying-to-do-my-best-for-the-team. Plus, Twitter tweets are fast. Reactions from a player are nearly immediate, sometimes even before a news story is released. Right after a game we can find out how happy or tired or sore or hungry a player is. Isn’t that important? Houston Dynamo New York Red Bulls Toronto FC Kansas City Wizards San Jose Earthquakes Chivas USA DC United Columbus Crew Los Angeles Galaxy New England Revolution Real Salt Lake Other American Professional Players Extra: Don’t think this is the real David Beckham’s Twitter account, but he already has over 36,000 followers: Beckham. I’m guessing Beckham takes this account over at some point. |