Posted 11.01.2009

Sports Biz: Play hard. Tweet often.

By Stewart Schley

Heard from Jay Cutler the other day. Good to catch up. That new comedy flick, “Couples Retreat”? Jay saw it a few weeks back, during bye week. Gave it the thumbs-up. “Check it out,“ Jay suggested. So I might.

We keep in touch now and then, Jay and I. Sort of like you keep in touch with a kid who’s away at college. The occasional text update, a few brief words on what’s up. First week of October, Jay lets me know things are cool. “Just watched some Detroit film,“ he tells me. “Trying to find some dinner.“

So yeah, we talk now and then. Although it’s really Jay who sort of dominates the conversation. I mostly listen. Same with my man Carmelo. I pretty much let him set the agenda. “You gotta catch that pass,“ ‘Melo offers up the other night, during the Packers-Vikings game. I shake my head in lament, too, because he’s right: You do have to catch that pass. Whichever pass that may be, because at the time I’m not exactly watching the game.

But I am tuned in to the latest crack in the proscenium arch that used to separate the sports audience from the athlete: the Tweet. Finally, it seems, we’ve discovered the proper use for the worldwide lattice of computer networks known as the Internet. And that is to know what the University of Colorado’s football coach, Dan Hawkins, has on his to-do list for the day. “Watching special teams film,“ wrote coach Hawk through his Twitter account a few weeks ago. And the world could rest just a bit easier.

To the list of odd but arresting pop-culture phenomena like Girls Gone Wild and animals that attack, we now can add Athletes Who Tweet (AWT). There are hundreds of them out there, including a handful of notable Colorado sports figures who regularly spurt out abbreviated diary entries of their daily routine via Twitter.com, the hugely popular yet somewhat mystifying Web platform for sharing life’s minutiae with perfect strangers.

You can find them with just a small bit of typing and hunting at Twitter.com, or you can get a neatly packaged listing of AWT participants at www.athletetweets.com. It’s there where I’ve bonded with the likes of Champ Bailey (“what up twitterland … going on Jim Rome in 30 mins.“), Carmelo Anthony (“Just got to China. The longest flight in the history of flying, especially when you don’t go to sleep not once”), and CU’s Hawkins, who so far in my brief exposure to AWT gets the award for least-compelling-yet-grammatically-perfect Tweets.

In fact, I’m wondering if it’s really Hawk who’s posting these mind-numbing updates, or some junior assistant in the athletic department who’s armed with spell-check software. A representative example: “Staff Meeting in 10 minutes.“ I get racier memos from my health-insurance company.

There is, in fact, a sad precedent already for ghost-written Tweets, a practice that seems to vanquish the whole appeal of getting to peek behind the carefully contrived presentation of superstar performers. Singer Britney Spears, for example, employs assistants to keep her Twitter feed updated, according to a New York Times report. (I know: I’m crushed, too.)

More authentic are contributions from Twitter devotees such as Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad OchoCinco, who seems to Tweet as frequently as most humans belch. But you’ve got to love the guy’s messages, which no ghost-Twitterer could possibly conjure. Here’s a recent one addressed to former Denver Bronco and ESPN personality Tom Jackson: “Tom you already know how I am, c’mon son it’s been 9 yrs. I talk then play, you know that, I love you man, enjoy the show Sunday.“

Yeah, what he said.

The fascinating element here is that AWTs violate longstanding practices from teams, sports leagues and media outlets that traditionally have controlled fan access to players. The business side of sports doesn’t seem quite to know what to do with AWTs. The National Basketball Association, concerned in particular about the sanctity of live games (and the possibility of somebody making a killing in a wager) has proscribed players and coaches from Tweeting within a 45-minute window preceding and following games.

After that, though, it’s Twitter time, when my best new Internet buddy ‘Melo and I get back on track. Tweet me again soon, pal.

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Last updated on Oct 25, 2009 at 01:49 PM

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