I came across an interesting opinion piece in the PG that someone wrote. I myself was totally appalled at this guy’s opinion, but maybe it’s just me and my love of social media that thinks this guy is a moron. Here’s a link to the article so you can see what I’m talking about.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/letters/ruining-pirates-tv-687520/
In summary, this guy thinks that Root Sports is doing a disservice to fans by allowing them to tweet for Twitter Tuesday and the Bucs Booth. Twitter Tuesday involves Root picking a Pirate player and allowing fans to use the hash tag #BucsTuesday to ask the player questions. The questions and answers are on the pre-game and during the game. The Bucs Booth tweets are usually general questions regarding past or present players, game thoughts, and basically anything related to baseball. This guy doesn’t like it that they discuss the tweets during games.
A quick search of both hash tags on twitter clearly shows the popularity among Pirates fans. Page after page of questions for the players and the booth. The following players also have twitter: McKenry, McCutchen, Grilli, Burnett, Locke, Melancon, Walker, Jones, Sanchez, Snider, Mercer….. I really don’t need to keep going, you get the point. Cutch has 106.3K followers, Grilli has 42.7K, and the hometown kid Neil Walker has 48.3K.
IS THIS GUY SERIOUS? He really thinks that using twitter to get fans involved is ruining Pirates TV??? I’m sure you all read my piece about the #MLB13CUTCH campaign and how successful it was. Cutch had over 108K votes, which equates to basically 1 vote for each of his twitter followers. Does he realize that the players interact with fans via social media? Does he realize this gives fans a sense of closeness with the players? Does he understand the Penguins gave clues to where tickets for game 2 were hidden all over the city via twitter? Obviously NOT.
IMO, this guy has to be some hermit with no internet that lives in a dirty cave basement and still uses bunny ears to watch his TV set that has knobs for volume and to change the channel. NEWSFLASH DUDE: its 2013 and social media is here to stay. Some of the biggest companies in the world have twitter and regularly post and interact with people. I mean, honestly, even NASA has a twitter account.
My advice to him? Either use that knob on your TV to turn the volume down and get over it, or embrace the shift to social media, it’s the 21st century.
Do we think this guy has a point, that social media shouldn't be involved? Or do we think its awesome to see the fan interaction with social media and sports? You already know how I feel about this.