Sports and Social Media

My alliances with sports teams often change depending on how certain seasons go. However, I often follow the Steelers football team because my mom is a huge fan. I think the Steelers do a great job with promoting the players and the team as a whole on their social media platforms. 

Like we have discussed in class, sports teams are using social media to promote building team spirit by humanizing the athletes. It is very common to see individual posts from individual athlete accounts reposted on the official team platforms. Posts from current players like Antonio Brown and retired athletes like Hines Ward are often shared. 

A great example of how the players are humanized is seen in the screen shot above. The middle photo on the top row shows one of the players cuddling a puppy. As of the time I'm writing this post, that video clip has almost 20,000 likes and nearly 64,000 views. People absolutely swoon when they see a powerful, athletic football player with a puppy. They also use the puppy angle on their Twitter page like the photo below:

"Am I getting paid for this?" - Molly, the dog

The Steelers also use their social media platforms to encourage fans to feel like they are really a part of the team. In the screenshot below of the Steelers Instagram, there are two pictures that show fans cheering the team on. 

I think the team does a great job of utilizing the reach of social media for the exact reasons we discussed in class. They show athletes being normal humans and the platforms really helps fans to tap into the team spirit.