Analyzing the Role of Social Media in Modern Sports and its Impact

This essay delves into the significant impact of social media on the sports industry. It explores how platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become integral to communication, promotion, and fan engagement. The essay highlights both the pros and cons of social media, including the ability for athletes to connect with fans, raise awareness for causes, and promote brands. It also acknowledges the potential for distraction and the challenges teams face in managing players' online presence. The essay provides examples of how social media has influenced athlete branding and fundraising efforts, such as Cristiano Ronaldo's charitable donation. Ultimately, the essay concludes that while social media offers numerous opportunities, its impact depends on responsible and informed usage, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach in leveraging its benefits while mitigating its drawbacks. The essay references several academic articles to support its arguments.

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA AND SPORTS
Social Media and Sports
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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The flawless rising of the social media has influenced several aspects of business as well
as life, but its major impact has been on the field of sports. From the past decade, social media
has become one of the major sources of communication and promotion of sporting information
as well as news updates. Everyone today is connected through internet. Internet can be accessed
through various devices in modern days including Laptops, computers and smart phones and this
has made internet very easy to access everywhere and by everyone. Everyone today is connected
through internet. Just with the help of a mere web connection, one can speak to the people living
in outside his country and this is helping in making connections in between our near and dear
ones. Each day more facts and information about sports are added to internet that is discussed
over emails and chat rooms. Like, for example, Facebook has now become the largest social
network website in the world with a considerable amount of more than 400 million users (Fox,
Jesse and Jennifer). Every results and updates on sports are been shared and posted on Facebook
and this means a large number of people have access to them. Apart from Facebook, there are
other individual websites as well that gives in depth information and updates about the upcoming
or prevailing sports competition and events. So, it is wise to say that social media has taken the
place of radio and television in terms of informing and updating people about the latest news on
sports and other worldwide activities (Allcott, Hunt and Matthew).
Pros and cons of social media: In modern days, it is very hard to watch sports event
without surfing or looking on the social media sites. There are several gifs and memes that are
made only a minute after a play happens. In fact, some of the people make their living wage by
posting the highlights from the games or sports and keep the fans updated about the insight of the
team. Teams now-a-days put more efforts in building up fans based on social media and on
communicating with their fans and followers. For some of the coaches this has become a matter

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of irritation as it is already very hard on them to plan the game and build out the things that are
good and bad for the team, in spite of that having to worry regarding their players and team
members posting or saying something that is wrong or inappropriate or leaking out their
conversations on the social media (Hamilton et al.). One of the other negative impacts of social
media is that it has the tendency to obstruct actually paying attention and enjoying the game.
According to Coach Rock, “There is also an argument that it is taking away from sports, a lot of
people were probably scrolling through their phone during the Superbowl, and sometimes it can
take away from the actual event.” It was reported that there was about 27.6M tweets with a hash
tag of #SB51 during the on-going game. Situations like this often happen every now and then
because social media has become a huge part of our life as there are more than 2.2 billion users
of it worldwide. As according to the MindJumpers, in the year 2012, 83% of the total sports fans
checks social media in order to acquire an insight during watching the game, sitting at their home
and 63% browse for the sports sites while they being there at the actual game. However, this rate
has been increased with the rise in social media. According to the report of 2016, 56% of the
total population of U.S had their social media profile in 2012, which was increased to 62% in
2013, 67% in 2014 to 78% in the year 2016 (Keating, Hendy and Can).
However, social media is not all about cons. There are many pros about social media as
well in field of sports. Social media allows the athletes share their views or opinions and is one
of the major sources of interactions with their fans. If a fan wants to interact with his favorite
athlete, he has a really good platform to do so, as social media will open up a big chance for him
actually doing it. It can also be used by the athletes to raise awareness and to promote
foundations, brand and charities (Michaelidou). In modern days, social media is one among the
loudest voices in terms of spreading words on common causes (Hong, Sounman and Daniel).

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This has helped the athletes easily catch the attention of their fans and followers. Many of the
athletes encourage and promote their brand on social media. According to Davies, Melissa and
Michael, a fan that follow his favorite athlete on the social networking sites has 55% chance to
buy a brand in case the athlete mentions about using it on Twitter or Facebook. One of the much
known examples of the advantage of social media is- a 10year old boy, Erik Ortiz Cruz was a
born neurological disorder patient. He was suffering near about thirty epileptic fits per day and
the one and only solution was doing a surgery. The hospital bills were raised up to 6000 U.S
dollars and it was said by the doctors that the surgery would cost about 63,000 dollars. The
family of the boy was failing to meet that huge bill. At that time, the very famous Cristiano
Ronaldo was requested to donate his shirt and boots in order to fund the raising auction which
was held for helping out with the hospital bills. Kindly, Ronaldo decided to reach out himself
and pay the hospital bill and had donated about 83,000 dollars to pay for the entire operation of
the child ("Cristiano Ronaldo Agrees To Pay For Real Madrid Fan's Brain Operation | Metro
News").
Hence, in conclusion it can be said that social media has both its positives as well as
negatives. It completely depends on an individual how he uses it. It has a lot of things to serve
which is never ending. Hence, it is wise to choose to intake that is necessary to intake as one can
never going to cover the whole of it. With the same, choose to digest what is necessary to digest
just try not to go overload on it or one may find himself going cross eyed.

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References:
"Cristiano Ronaldo Agrees To Pay For Real Madrid Fan's Brain Operation | Metro
News". Metro.Co.Uk, 2018, http://metro.co.uk/2014/03/11/cristiano-ronaldo-agrees-to-pay-for-
real-madrid-fans-brain-operation-4531456/. Accessed 4 Mar 2018.
Allcott, Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. "Social media and fake news in the 2016
election." Journal of Economic Perspectives31.2 (2017): 211-36.
Davies, Melissa, and Michael Mudrick. "Brand management in a niche sport: A case study of an
LPGA golfer's use of Instagram." Global Sport Business Journal 5.1 (2017): 1.
Fox, Jesse, and Jennifer J. Moreland. "The dark side of social networking sites: An exploration
of the relational and psychological stressors associated with Facebook use and
affordances." Computers in Human Behavior 45 (2015): 168-176.
Hamilton, Mitchell, Velitchka D. Kaltcheva, and Andrew J. Rohm. "Social media and value
creation: the role of interaction satisfaction and interaction immersion." Journal of Interactive
Marketing 36 (2016): 121-133.
Hong, Sounman, and Daniel Nadler. "The unheavenly chorus: Political voices of organized interests on social
media." Policy & Internet 8.1 (2016): 91-106.
Keating, Robert T., Helen M. Hendy, and S. Hakan Can. "Demographic and psychosocial
variables associated with good and bad perceptions of social media use." Computers in human
behavior 57 (2016): 93-98.

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Michaelidou, Nina. "6 Understanding social media as commercial platforms for engaging with
young adults." Youth Drinking Cultures in a Digital World: Alcohol, Social Media and Cultures
of Intoxication (2017): 101.