Small Tweet? Big Fine for NFL’s Larry Johnson
Last March Mark Cuban was fined $25,000 for complaining about NBA referees on the social media website, Twitter. It was a risk Cuban was happy to take, and when he was interviewed afterward he said that he was, “fine with it.” With the sites exponential growth it was inevitable that this was just the start of sports related Tweet-fines.
During training camp Antonio Cromartie of the NFL’s San Diego Chargers was fined $2500 for complaining about his team’s unsatisfactory food. In the tweet Cromartie wrote, “Man we have 2 have the most nasty food of any team. Damn can we upgrade 4 str8 years the same ish maybe that’s y we can’t we the SB we need.” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell came down hard, and early in the season, making his message clear. Goodell did not want players in his league using Twitter to discuss anything NFL related, even if it was just training camp food.
Earlier this week it was Kansas City Chief’s Pro Bowl running back, Larry Johnson, who was made the ultimate example of. He was fined $600,000 and could possibly lose his contract for a tweet that included gay slurs. Some NFL stars, like Ustream sensation Chad Johnson, seem to have effectively embraced the technology, capitalizing on its reach. Other players, like Larry Johnson, are obviously finding the reach and visibility (that are the products of these types of social media) of Twitter hard to cope with. Because of this tweet Johnson is in jeopardy of losing his $19 million guaranteed contract, and it is very clear that, for better or worse, we now accept a tweet as seriously as if it had been said at an official news conference.
If you are interested in social media management to ensure you are not the result of a Larry Johnson type slip up you should look into the training and management services offered by Meritocracy Consulting. It’s a steep learning curve and everyone is watching…
November 11th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
[…] for efficient communication… as long as you don’t go too far. A good example of too far? Poor LJ of the KC Chiefs—not only did he get that enormous fine, earlier this week he was let go […]