The No Facebook League… well sort of

September 22, 2009 • 12:14 pm • POSTED BY spenning

I’m a fan of the NFL.

I believe it is one of the best run businesses around. When you consider all of professional sports it has the best salary cap and free agency structure allowing teams to move from worst to first in the span of a year. The balance of power between professional football organizations and their players helps prohibit players from taking a day, a week or even a season ‘off’. A plight that many other professional sports teams deal with once players get their guaranteed money (thanks Matt Geiger). The amount of games that are played throughout the course of a season are so few compared to their professional counterparts that every play seemingly counts more.

Like any successful business the NFL has evolved and found new markets. This can be illustrated in the league’s efforts to have more games abroad and in the way it has been able to take what was a four to five month season and turn it into a year long engagement. Shortly after the Superbowl the Combine starts being promoted. The Combine takes place in February followed by a few months of pre-draft hype. The NFL draft takes place in April (and generally gets more viewers than NBA playoff games occurring at the same time). Followed by post draft analysis, training camp the preseason and before you know it is September and you’ve been following football all year on what – the NFL Network. All of this ultimately provides fans with ways to stay emotionally invested with the NFL.

Recently the league was faced with a decision that many organizations are grappling with. What will our policies be in the face of evolving social media? With its hand forced by Ochocinco the NFL had to modify its position. For a business that has done so much to expand its reach and interest  the new policy seems counterintuitive to the progress it has made.

The NFL said that it will let players, coaches, and other team personnel engage in social networking during the season. However, they will be prohibited from using Twitter and from updating profiles on Facebook and other social-networking sites during games. In addition, they will not be allowed to tweet or update social-networking profiles 90 minutes before a game and until post-game interviews are completed. The rules also extend to people who could represent a player or coach on their personal accounts and also prohibit the media attending the game to post updates through social networks.

The ruling to prohibit players, coaches, and other team personnel from tweeting during games makes sense. But why won’t the NFL allow players to post updates directly after games? Instead of waiting for a few select players or coaches to come up to the podium after a crushing defeat or roaring victory why not allow all of them to post to their social networks? Real time input directly after the game could prove advantageous as it expands not only the NFL following but an individual player or coaches following.

What also seems a little foggy is the stipulation that people who could represent a player or coach are prohibited from providing content. What if McNabb’s mom wanted to post that her son just scored a touchdown (or finished some Campbell’s Soup)? What if there was an emergency on the field where twitter could most quickly find a doctor in the stands who could help? Moreover, how will the NFL define and then monitor people considered representative of a player?

As it relates to regulating the media the league’s policy has been that while a game is in progress that, any forms of accounts of the game must be sufficiently time-delayed and limited in amount. Here the league is protecting its huge TV and radio contracts so no tweeting can be going on from the press box. This policy is set up for failure. If the guy sitting in the stands isn’t representing a player or a member of the media and is able to provide live-tweets of play-by-play action his reporting could ultimately trump that of the media.

My expectations of the NFL as with other trusted brands and businesses is that they are more often than not going to make decisions aligned with their value set and that those decisions are ultimately going to benefit the consumer. In this instance the league has done neither.

Now please pardon me as I have to go and check the waiver wire in my Fantasy League.