Fan-Athlete Interaction: There Has to be a Better Way

Pac-10 Media Day is coming up on Thursday, and this year's media day will debut a new feature: twitter.

There's no question that social networking has changed how people across the nation (and spreading to the word) communicate with one another. This relatively recent phenomenon is now expanding to dip its fingers in not only person-to-person communication, but also as a vehicle for the media. Whether it's Dwight Howard starting a Facebook page, Shaq twittering during games, Ochocinco butting heads with the league over twittering, or worries about NCAA recruiting, social networking has caused quite a stir in the world of sports.

And where a stir occurs, the sportswriters will follow. In the past several months, a discussion has been quietly simmering about the state of social networking in sports. The verdict has been decidedly "wait and see." College athletic programs have done little but warn their athletes to use caution when putting information on the web. However, few warnings have been given out to coaches, who seem to be embracing the fad. USC's Pete Carrol is known for being an avid "tweeter', and Cal Head Coach Jeff Tedford also has a twitter page.

While twitter hosts real coaches, it has also spawned fans creating pages with names of coaches fakecoachwulff and fakecoachsark are two pages run by fans of the Pac-10 teams. Luckily these pages have the word "fake" in them. But how long until someone makes a page called "coachwulff," or "coachtedford" and claims to be the head coach's official page? How can twitter regulate what is posted?

In my opinion, this new openness that has come with social networking is bad. No athlete should be telling me what he had for breakfast on twitter, no college athletes should be making fools of themselves on facebook, coaches should not be advertising their programs online, and fans should definitely not be allowed to ask questions at media days.

Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of fan interaction is great. I myself have participated in moderated chats with athletes and coaches, and they do have value. But media days are off limits. Although the questions sent on twitter will be moderated as well, I feel that the individuals who are allowed to ask questions at media days have earned the right to do so through hard work as journalists. It is the job of those sportswriters to generate questions for coaches, players and conference administrators.

I understand that the twitter submission idea is a ploy to generate interest in the Pac-10 media day, but, honestly, they could come up with something better. For example, they could institute a Preseason All Pac-10 list the results of which would be released at the media day to stir up interest and get people talking about the conference and so on.

While social networking has been helpful to millions of people across the globe, it should steer clear of sports. No more high profile athletes announcing contract negotiations on twitter, no more college kids getting busted on facebook. The world of sports would benefit greatly if social networking sites would take two giant steps back from the world of sports. Give the old-fashioned press conferences and interviews some room to work. I'm all for fan interaction in sport, but there must be a better way.