An in depth look at the effects social media has on relationships between athletes on different teams.
An educated personal take from the blog of Ryan Rickard as of July 2020.
There have always been close relationships between athletes across sports teams, but media and technology have made this relationship more common throughout time. Today athletes are in instant contact with players that aren’t on their team and as a result this can lead to both positive and negative relationships between athletes from opposing teams. These two types of relationships built are commonly either positive through friendship building or negative through tension and rivalry building.
Social Media and Athlete Friendships
Friendships may arise from positive encouragement between athletes over social media following a contest. This positive encouragement often occurs in social media posts scripting phrases such as “awesome performance out there today @athlete” or “@athlete worked hard today, so proud of you brother”. These friendships are seen across social media but have been specifically seen on the social media platforms Twitter and Instagram (Sanderson, 2011, 8,14). Rivalries and tension may arise from negative athlete reactions displayed over social media. These negative athlete reactions often create negative relationships when one athlete criticizes or insults another athlete’s performance or pre-game and post-game actions. Negative athlete reactions are most commonly noted over the social media platform Twitter (Browning & Sanderson, 2011, 85). This may be because Twitter is a social media platform that allows athletes to compose short memos publicly at a very fast paced rate.
The National Basketball Association (NBA)
The National Basketball Association (NBA) of the United States and Canada is a basketball league that has athletes commonly known for their social media usage. This use of social media has created both positive and negative relationships between athletes throughout the league over time and is now often a popular topic in sports blogs, media, and even sometimes psychological and communicative research (Price, Farrington, & Hall, 2012, 12). Unfortunately, there currently are more negative trending social media interactions within the NBA than there are positive which can lead to difficult situational thinking regarding relationship building and up-keep between NBA teams and their players.
An early example of tarnished relationships between players comes before social media. It is important to understand how negative relationships between players started in the NBA years ago before one understands how social media affects these relationships today. National Basketball Association players Michael Jordan and Charles Oakley have had a tarnished relationship over time due to rivalries and media (Robinson, 2019). While both players played for the same team, Chicago, they had an excellent friendship and are now sometimes called a dynamic duo of 1990’s basketball. However, after Charles Oakley left the team and joined a New York based team, that relationship was later tarnished by both rivalries and eventually some negative media outings. These media outings included not only these two athletes, but another athlete named Charles Barkley whom in talking about Michael Jordan and Charles Oakley’s relationship affected the relationships between all three athletes in a negative way (Robinson, 2019). In understanding how past media has affected relationships one can now understand how the faced-pace and instant access features have social media has escalated these interactions rapidly.
Two great examples of social media tarnishing friendships between athletes from opposing teams are the Steven Jackson and Charlie Villanueva controversies. Steven Jackson was a player for a San Antonio team in December of 2012 who was fined $25,000 by the NBA for a controversial social media post (Xu, Yu, & Hoi, 2015, 82). During this year Jackson released a statement on Twitter threatening another athlete from an opposing team that later tarnished their relationship and could have possibly made that athlete as well as other athletes nervous about playing against Jackson. This statement goes as follows, “Somebody tell serg Abaka. He aint bout dis life. Next time he run up on me im goin in his mouth.That’s a promise. He doin 2 much” (Xu, Yu, & Hoi, 2015, 82). Charlie Villanueva, a former player for the Milwaukee Bucks team, is another player who found himself in social media controversy after he posted a tweet during halftime of a home game in 2009. Although the statement made was not negative toward other players, the timing of the post being mid-game not only caused the media to criticize Villanueva for not paying attention during the game but also may have caused team members, fans, coaches, and friends from other team’s to lose trust in Vilanueva as he was seen as non-focused during a game. Charlie Villanueva’s tweet reads as follows, “In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We’re playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up” (Xu, Yu, & Hoi, 2015, 82). With both Steven Jackson and Charlie Villanueva one can begin to understand how social media is always affecting player relationships between both teammates and players from opposing teams.
The National Football League (NFL)
The National Football League (NFL) of the United States is an American football league that also has athletes who have been involved in social media controversies. With the NFL being a very popular league in the United States often players who spark controversies over their social media are not only later reported by sports media but also by other forms of news media as well. Some athletes arguably have even created a name for themselves or following for themselves based more so on their social media usage rather than their in-game athletic performances. This social media usage has been proven to not only have affected the National Football League but has also affected athlete relationships across multiple teams within the league.
One famous social media encounter involved the athlete, Rob Gronkowski, an NFL football player for a New England based football team. Although much of this controversy was not posted by Gronkowski himself, it is a great testament to how an athlete’s reputation and relationships can be affected by social media. In 2011, photos were posted on social media of Rob Gronkowski posing with adult film actress Bibi Jones. Although these photos were controversial and started some buzz, the photos were escalated to a large-scale situation when Bibi Jones got into a social media dispute with followers as she described her photo and relationship with athlete Rob Gronkowski using very sexual and taboo language (Zaldivar, 2017). Following these tweets, the athlete later took to Twitter apologizing to his fans and teammates for her inappropriate language as the controversy sparked had affected his relationship with his fans as well as his relationships with a few different players around the league (Zaldivar, 2017). Some athletes may have thought of Gronkowski as irresponsible, non-focused, or too care free following this social media controversy and a few others that he has had during his time of career in the National Football League.
Another athlete from the NFL who has sparked controversy over social media and has damaged player relationships between teams is athlete Antonio Brown. Brown is notorious for his social media posts which have cause him to later be fired from multiple sports teams and threaten his entire playing career (Doherty,2019). One notable interaction involves the shattering of a multi-team relationship between Brown and another athlete, Eric Weedle. On September 26, 2019 Antonio Brown stated via Twitter, “U need some attention lil man glad I put that stuff arm in your neck in pittsburgh u deserved it Lil Weedle” (Doherty,2019). Eric Weedle then responded “Hahahahhaahaha. AB. When are u gonna learn that it isnt about you. Never was and never will be. Got a game to get ready for. Good luck my guy!” (Doherty,2019). Following this interaction Antonio Brown’s relationship with many players across the league was tarnished and he was eventually fired from another team. For example, Brown was short-after involved in another social media scuffle with another player named Baker Mayfield. Mayfield is known to have been friends with Eric Weedle at the time and was insulted by Brown’s comments, eventually becoming a target of Brown’s comments himself (Doherty,2019). These specific interactions ended with Brown also posting controversial photos via Instagram of him pushing Eric Weedle during a game. Today Brown has been traded by the Pittsburgh Steelers, released by the Oakland Raiders and released by the New England Patriots all due to his social media practices (Doherty,2019). Antonio Brown provides many great examples of how social media usage has negatively affected an athlete’s relationships with other players across the National Football League.
The Future of Athlete Social Media
With the current trends in social media interactions and usage from athletes, it may be uncertain as to how social media could affect the relationships between athletes across teams over time. Some speculations may suggest that by creating more relationships over social media, athletes will create stronger bonds with players from other teams therefor making a more friendly contest. According to some sports journalists such as Justin Terranova from the New York Post, the NBA has in recent time began to become a more friendly sports league due to athletes now seeing their social media platforms as more of an artform rather than a place to voice grievances (Terranova, J., 2019). Other speculations may suggest that the continuous rise of social media is only leading towards more league drama and drama between players. As shown in this report player relationship issues have escalated since the introduction of mainstream social media usage in some instances. Through instant contact between teammates and players from opposing teams over social media it will be interesting to see which trends of contact continue between players and how social media will affect athlete friendships across teams over time.
References Used in This Blog Post:
Doherty, M. (2019, September 28). Here's what Antonio Brown has said on Twitter the
past few days. Retrieved from https://www.boston.com/sports/new-england-
patriots/2019/09/28/heres-what-antonio-brown-has-said-on-twitter-the-past-few-days.
Price, Farrington, & Hall (2012). Tweeting with the enemy? The
impacts of new social media on sports journalism and the education of sports
journalism students. Journalism Education, 1 (1).
Robinson, B., (2019, May 7). Charles Barkley Reacts to Michael Jordan, Charles
Oakley Feud. Retrieved from https://heavy.com/sports/2019/05/charles-barkley-michael-jordan-charles-oakley/.
Sanderson, J. (2011). It’s a whole new ballgame: How social media is changing
sports. The Digital Revolution, 103.
Terranova, J. (2019, February 14). The NBA's embrace of social media still has issues
to work out. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2019/02/14/the-nbas-embrace-of-
social-media-still-has-issues-to-work-out/.
Xu, C., Yu, Y., & Hoi, C. K., (2015). Hidden in-game intelligence in NBA players'
tweets. Communications of the ACM, 58(11), 80-89.
Zaldivar, G. (2017, October 3). Rob Gronkowski Apology for Bibi Jones Pictures Is Not
Needed nor Warranted. Retrieved from https://bleacherreport.com/articles/
912355-rob-gronkowski-apology-for-bibi- jones-pictures-is
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