For my second blog I chose to write about owners. I figured I would write about some exciting trade or some sort of feud between an overzealous player and a head strong owner. However I found something today that I found much more interesting. I found an article titled Malaga president Abdullah bin Nasser Al-Thani declares his side's UCL loss was because of racism. Now this article was stated that Malaga president tweeted after the game that the only reason that his team lost was because the officials were racist (foxsports.com). He claimed that the winning goal should never have counted because the player that scored it was off sides. It was also reported that there were several mistakes that were made in the form of no calls that benefited Malaga as well. It was stated that both coaches were very critical of the officiating of the match. You could argue that since there were bad calls all around and the officiating for the match was just not very good.
This then brings me to the topic that I want to discuss. That is owners and social media. The Malaga president garnered massive attention after the loss because instead of blaming the loss on poor play he made wild accusations of racism over a social media site. This then sparked a lot of publicity and really muddied the water around the game. The popular approach that many sports owners take today is to air out a lot of the team’s dirty laundry. I know many people that say social media and things like Facebook and Twitter are a blessing for a real sports fan. However I don't buy it. I think that many owners have things like a Twitter to really help exercise their egos and it really lends nothing to the game. If anything it diminishes a lot from the game.
I bring into light one of my favorite owners in all of sports Mark Cuban. Mr. Cuban just made major headlines last week by saying that if he had the chance he would consider drafting Baylor’s star women’s basketball forward Brittany Grinner. This made many people upset because they believe that Cuban is just using that fact that she is a woman as a publicity stunt. However it would make sense for Cuban to show some kind of interest in here since she plays at Baylor and it has a very close proximity to Dallas. Many believe that since the ailing Mav’s are performing less than average this season that Cuban is using Grinner to take a little attention away from the problem at hand. Cuban has also received multiple fines from the league for his public criticism of the officials using Twitter.
As much as I say that owners and social media are a bad thing I must also admit that there are many benefits to it as well. There are many people like my friends that love the fact that they could know every fact about certain teams. When you think about the things that people like Mark Cuban do they are kind of genius. It gives people a more personal approach to their teams. We must also look at the people like Dana White who founded the UFC. He uses Twitter to actually respond to the fans and really get into his patented feuds with high ranking people including his own fighters. The personal approach he takes many people say is a big difference for why the UFC is so successful (sportsbusinessdaliy.com).
Works Cited
1. 1. Fisher, Eric. "20 Great Uses of Social Media in Sports." - SportsBusiness Daily. N.p., 1 Aug. 2011. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
2. 2. "Malaga President Abdullah Bin Nasser Al-Thani Declares His Side's UCL Loss Was Because of Racism." Fox Sports Football. N.p., 11 Apr. 2013. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
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