Conversation-Centric Strategy: The NFL Needs To Let Social Media Fly

The NFL is all about protection and containment.

The offense utilizes enormous linemen to form a protective barrier around the quarterback and a giant plow for running backs – keeping the defense at bay.

The defense emphasizes lane discipline, containing the opposing team within a complex matrix of position players to prevent it from advancing up the field.

With all its emphasis on control and discipline, is it any wonder why the NFL can’t quite understand social media? Like a rain-slicked fumble flopping about the red zone turf, the league just can’t seem to get a handle on it.

When the season began in August, Official League Policy dictated that no players, coaches, reporters or even spectators could utilize social media to comment in real time about practices and games. Obviously, this proved impossible to police, potentially illegal and extremely detrimental to media and fan relations – and the league backed down.

Some individual teams set policies forbidding their players and coaches from using social media such as Twitter and Facebook at all. As in, ever. On the field, or off. As their “employers,” this was well within the teams’ rights. But once again, nature found a way (to reference that great football movie, Jurassic Park). Players continued to tweet and post, and most teams decided that it would be impossible and ineffective to punish them.

In the meantime, these organizations and individuals have built enormous followings on popular platforms – the Steelers have a Facebook fan page with more than 400,000 fans, Chad Ochocinco’s Twitter page has more than 369,712 followers. These are fantastic opportunities for “customer outreach” and engagement marketing – yet another feather in the cap of this multi-billion dollar sport that continues to rule the fall/winter airwaves.

Of course, with this many “employees” who have a free agent mentality, there are bound to be negative consequences to their authentic conversation, too – some playful, others regrettable. A Vikings player reportedly tweeted something like “ZZZZZZ boring. Coach talking.” during a team meeting, and found himself doing a few extra laps that day. A Chiefs player recently posted a defamatory remark about gays on his Twitter page, and was banned from the team’s facilities while punishments were considered. He has since been released from the team.

But the communication/brand benefits of social media for the NFL – and really, any organization – clearly far outweigh the risks.

I was able to chat briefly with Sports Illustrated’s NFL columnist Peter King last summer when he was in town to visit Giants’ training camp. Nice, approachable guy. I commended him for being so social media forward (he has over 180,000 Twitter followers), and he laughed. “You know what,” he said, “I have no choice. If I don’t do that, people are going to stop reading my column. It’s just what you have to do.”

Indeed. Like a quarterback down by four points with seconds to go, the NFL just needs to let it fly.

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