Sports Social Media Policy

On October 9,2016, ESPN senior writer Darren Rovell writes an article titled "NFL teams can be fined for posting video under new social media policy". It describes the NFL's newly introduced part of the social media policy they have. It states that teams may no longer shoot video inside the stadium during games and post it on social media, nor may they use other live stream apps such as Facebook Live, Periscope or anything of that measure to stream anything live within the stadium. Teams cannot take highlights of what happens on the field and make it their own by using their own video and posting it directly on social media. Teams also cannot turn highlights into animated GIFs. Sources say that the league executives want to make sure that the content that is being generated within the stadiums is hosted by only the team websites so that the league maintains control of what is distributed to the public. In other words, executives want viewers to go through the official NFL channels to get their video content.

Any violation of this policy will cost teams $25,000 upon the first instance, $50,000 upon the second instance, and $100,000 for any additional violation of the policy. This seems like a ridiculous request by the NFL if you ask me, and many other teams agree. Teams have come up with ways to mock this new policy. For example the Eagles mock this new regulation by creating new and creative methods of tweeting highlights of games without violating the new rule. This website displays a twitter GIF that was when the Eagles played the Redskins and Malcolm Jenkins made an interception, the members of the Eagles team created a video of an old-school electric football game that recreated the play. 

I understand that this preventative policy is to allow the NFL to maintain control over what is displayed to the public and to control how fans view certain content, but what about what they are taking away from the fans? Sometimes the best content are the ones that you find from players that post about it. Fans thrive off of following their favorite players or teams and ultimately enjoy watching or reading the content they post. Wouldn't you think that the NFL would gain more viewers if they didn't make such stupid regulations? These regulations against live streaming video content just made teams want to mock the rules. Hence the videos that were created that were made into highlight GIFS anyways. Why does the NFL feel the need to control this aspect of the league? Instead of banning teams from live streaming video altogether, why don't they just ban what type of content they can stream? I understand that it is impossible to monitor every potential social media avenue an athlete has access to. Athletes have too many social media options nowadays, but that is the generation. Social media is how most news travels the fastest. Fans follow athletes and athletes post for fans. I think the NFL's social policy regulations are too strict and I believe if you are a member of a team you should be able to post whatever you please, with of course, regulations on inappropriate content. Athletes should be allowed to post whatever they would like as long as it is posted in a positive way toward the team they represent. They obviously need to be aware of who is taking videos or pictures of them and making sure they are not behaving in an inappropriate way that would make their team look bad, but I think such strict regulations are stupid. I mean it's only a sport. Let people live their live how they want. If they want to post videos, let them. Why make everything so strict? I believe that regulations like this will just spark the players that have rebellious personalities to post live videos anyway, in spite of the new regulations, causing more damage than if there was no regulation established in the first place. I think content will get leaked whether there are regulations or not, so why create them in the first place? Unless, secretly, this is how the NFL knows they will make more money. Maybe they know that teams will get so annoyed by the regulations and break the rules, making it so teams will owe multiple fees and the NFL will continue to gain money and more money. Who really knows? All I know is that this seems like a stupid regulation.