the support social media shows

The sports world was shocked at 4:24 PM on a Monday, April 12th, 2021. When the New England Patriots released three-time Super Bowl champion, Super Bowl 53 MVP, and Patriots all-decade team player Julian Edelman. Who was a cornerstone for the dynasty up in New England. Julian Edelman was the definition of a tough hard-nosed player who was always clutch in key moments, a true champion in every which way.

Shortly after the release of Julian Edelman from the Patriots. Julian went onto social media and posted a video thanking the Patriots and the fans for a wonderful 12-year career in Foxboro, Julian Edelman at the end of the video said "I'm going to leave you with two words, Foxboro Forever." The tremendous amount of support from Patriot fans and even fans of rival teams were showing Julian was beautiful. It shows social media can be a good place.

Former teammates and current teammates congratulated Edelman on a wonderful career, all through social media. Teammates praising him as a player and how he is a true leader and on top of that teammates were applauding him as a person as well.

Possibly Julian Edelman's greatest teammate ever Tom Brady went to social media and put out a post on Instagram just showing his love and appreciation for Julian. A little part from Brady's Instagram post he put up a couple of hours after Edelman retired was "On the biggest stage and in the biggest moments, you always came through. I was a witness to so much of the journey and am so proud of you and how you grew from 7th round underdog to an older 7th round underdog. The truth is, you never really grew up 😂😂!" Fans everywhere were seeing comments like these and they started gaining respect for Julian Edelman.

To see this type of support for a player when they retire is extremely rare. Normally when a player retires from the league, we see the complete opposite come out. We hear and see fans talking badly about the players and is he really that good, but of course from teammates, we hear the support.

For example, a recent retiree from the NFL was Philip Rivers; he played a dreaded seventeen seasons. Fans went berserk on social media voicing their opinion about Philip Rivers and how he never won any super bowls, never had playoff success too. When the achievements Philip Rivers has accomplished are more impressive than their favorite team's quarterbacks. Philip's career passing stats are all in the top 7 of all time.

On social media when Julian Edelman retired, fans, teammates, coaches, and even opposing team players came in and congratulated him on a fantastic career. Both Rivers and Edelman are great players at their respective position, but where was the support for Rivers? Social media really can be a supportive tool most of the time for athletes, but sometimes it can be extremely unfair, to the athletes who don't have the championships to show at the end of their careers.

NBA fashion and social media

The wild fashion styles of the NBA and its players. The strange but cool sense of fashion took off recently with the rise of social media because it got players to show off their pre-game outfits right away to the fans, and reporters.

When you think of NBA players and fashion; Russel Westbrook is the first player to come to mind. Social media loves Russel Westbrook's fashion sense because of the clicks it generates, because of the fashion sense being out there and unique. Westbrook also never wears the same outfit twice and after he wears it, he donates the clothes to goodwill.

This fashion sense has not just started because of social media, Magic Johnson said to Esquire. Guys like Walt Frazier, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, and Magic Johnson all were fans of having this weird but cool fashion sense. What Magic told Esquire was the new players should not be getting all the credit for their fashion sense “We all wore what was hot in our day, too. The difference [today] is the players get to show people right then and there what they have. Unless you came and took a picture of me, no one would’ve known what I wore.”

What social media has done for the NBA and its players is let them express themselves in their outfits. There was always interest in this fashion sense but why should players spend all this money on different outfits if there was never a platform to share it on. But in 2005 the former commissioner of the NBA passed a rule that made players only wear business casual outfits. With banning; chains, pendants, and medals.

Many critics found this rule, to be racist because they were connecting the chains to Allen Iverson's style. But the dress code rule went into play and the players were forced to focus on a new style. The Beats president said that style is the whole gateway to thinking about what's outside of basketball.

Social media is what truly lifted this dress code up, it was an escape for players to make a name for themselves off the court. All because the athletes that enter the league have really only had one goal in mind: make the big league. They never had the opportunity to make a true name for themselves, that is where social media comes into play.

If these players are going to use social media to build their brand, they need to express themselves with their fashion. This is because they are many players out there with strange but awesome fashion senses, the world would love to see. For example, Russel Westbrook his fashion sense is wild and it can be a little too much at times but he makes it work and has been able to build that brand around him through social media.

twitter's impact on sports.

Twitter has proven countless amount of times that it has impacted sports in all sorts of ways. From impacting a player’s decision on where to sign, players becoming friends, or players hating each other. There is always some drama created by Twitter.

If Twitter is creating drama between players of any sport, why is it used? Twitter is used for sports still because of its convenience factor, news can get released to the public immediately, fans do not have to wait for news stations to break the news when they can interact with the signing. A lot of the time now a player does not need to be signed, it just has to be a rumor about a team getting phone calls from other teams to trigger Twitter to blow up. This tweet I linked is a perfect example, the comment section is all about love and hate about this player.

But of course, with all the athlete, fan interaction, there has got to be a lot of marketing opportunities on social media about sports. Right? If you are thinking yes, the marketing opportunity is big then you are 1000% correct. For marketers, it is easy to advertise on Twitter because the primary audience they are reaching is already actively paying attention to the content that is coming out. On top of that, marketers have noticed the sports audience on Twitter is already massive with just under 30 billion total searches about sports alone, this is over an eight percent growth from 2017.

Sports marketers have to research when is the perfect time to get to their audience. They take into account their demographics and when fans are on Twitter at specific times to help engagement. The best time for them to market to their audience is during March Madness, this is because March Madness is primarily college kids supporting their school and Twitter is full of the younger demographic. The sports audience on Twitter has proven they are crazy for college sports.

March Madness has Twitter buzzing more than ever, back in 2018 they were over eleven million tweets sent out during the tournament. That is just during the actual tournament, before the tournament begins millions of tweets come out during the conference playoffs to see who makes the Big Dance. While selection Sunday is when the tweets are rolling out in bunches like an assembly line, the marketability is off the charts.

How do we know if fans will enjoy companies and brands marketing to them? Fans have made it very clear that they want brands to interact with college basketball, and not just interact they want them to be on Twitter more. To help participate in games and having special deals, that is what the fans want and it would help the company too because fans would share that content with their friends. But, the fans want these brands to go out and give score updates and just general updates about the games that go on, they want to engage in conversation with the brand.

How social media can impact a free agency signing.

At 12:46 PM on March 1st, 2021 recent free agent JJ Watt broke news out himself on Twitter that he was signing with Arizona Cardinals. Every sports journalist, analyst, and average football fan was shocked about this signing.

Going back a few weeks when he was released by the Houston Texans, fans and analysts were saying JJ is going to a Super Bowl contender. They narrowed it down to four places; and the places were narrowed down to them because whatever JJ Watt was tweeting, people would try to decode basic tweets into locations and go ahead and say "Oh Watt's going up to Buffalo." People would try and manipulate his tweets and make an assumption of him going to Pittsburgh to play with his brothers.

Social Media really is a strong tool because it can bring a player closer to their fans, or make them completely change their decision. Social media's growth in sports has been so influential because of the interaction of fans. It really makes and breaks the player and his decision.

Plus, for JJ Watt this situation is a much bigger situation than other free agents because a player of this caliber doesn't just become a free agent through being released. For JJ he can take his time while picking and choosing his future perfect team. While social media will be erupting and going through the nitty-gritty of whatever he posts on social media, trying to manipulate all clues out from the post. Fans in two seconds of JJ tweeting out, will jersey swap their favorite teams' jersey on JJ Watt.

Fans are not the only thing that affects sports with social media, the players do too. A former teammate of JJ Watt a season prior went out and posted on Instagram a photo of JJ and him on the Texans with the caption "Let’s finish what we started..." Nudging JJ in the direction of signing with the Cardinals, and it worked.

What social media has become in the sports world is a new way of recruitment. You couldn't go a day without seeing JJ Watt news to another team from a player of that team. Not long ago we were living in an age where a player would be a free agent and the only thing we would hear about rumors of where they would sign was through ESPN and these big sport media outlets. Other team players and the free agent never used to be friends. But, with social media becoming more and more prominent it's showing us these player bonds.

One day we are going to possibly see social media do all the recruitment process, we won't need these big media outlets on television anymore.

Social Media and The Super Bowl! Is tom the true goat?

Tom Brady and the Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl two weeks ago, the final score was 31-9.

Social media really exploded after the Super Bowl, with two sides to the result of the big game. You had one side that were the happiest people on the planet since Tom Brady won another ring. While you had the other side who were completely on the opposite of joy and happiness when they saw Tom win another ring. I certainly was happy to see Brady win another ring, but my roommate was not on my side tonight.

There has always been this massive ongoing debate on social media about Tom Brady, and his greatness. Certainly, after the super bowl, there were a lot of people who jumped on to the Tom Brady is the GOAT category from hating on him previously. For example, the host of First Take on ESPN, Max Kellerman said a few years ago that Brady is going to fall off a cliff, but since Max said that Brady has been one step ahead of everyone in the NFL. After the NFC Championship Max tweeted out this "Tom Brady has had a full Hall of Fame career...in the time SINCE I made the cliff prediction."

Social media, runs wild with these takes people to say, and it then comes back to bite them later down the road. All these people constantly trying to prove that Brady is not the GOAT, by saying, he is second in the passing yards all-time he has to be first. While next season he probably will take that title with Drew Brees retiring. The haters are trying their hardest to pull up information about Brady that does not make him the GOAT, but it is getting harder and harder by the seasons because of all the accomplishments this man has achieved. Year in and year out he is a fierce competitor that has a massive motor to keep him going.

But these haters that don't consider Brady the GOAT were "tackled" with proper facts proving Brady is the GOAT with the people who do consider him the GOAT. Brady is the all time leader in touchdown passes in NFL History with 581 passes resulting in six, 800 yards shy of the 80,000 passing yards. Brady has three MVPs sit along with five Super Bowl MVPs. Plus, seven super bowl wins is more than any team has. On a side note people are forgetting Brady is 43 years old and is in his 20th NFL season and had a ridiculous stat line this season with 4,633 yards, 40 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. While Patrick Mahomes being 25 had 38 touchdowns.

Brady being this dominant at 43 years old, really makes you think why can't people appreciate him as much as his fans do. We don't see this type of greatness every day and this is once in a generation type talent.