Athlete Twittering: You’re Doing It Wrong

There are a lot of outstanding athlete Twitter profiles -- maybe none better than Cowboys tight end Martellus Bennett (@MartyBTV) -- but you can already see that advertisers are starting to creep in and suck out the fun. Take Danica Patrick’s new Twitter page, for example. Details found via SportsBusiness Journal ↵↵⇥IRL driver Danica Patrick has launched a Twitter feed at the behest of existing watch sponsor Tissot, located @DanicaPatrick. She is believed to be the first major athlete to join Twitter in conjunction with a corporate entity, and Tissot will receive extensive exposure on her feed, including visual branding on her Twitter Web page. ↵↵

↵↵I can already see the really subtle 140-character bursts: “Oh, just sitting here sunning in a bikini, admiring a man with a nice Tissot watch.” ↵

↵↵Even the best athlete Twitter feeds are going a little bit corporate. Shaq announced an endorsement deal with Enlyten on his Twitter page and now they’re getting space on his faux viral videos. ↵

↵↵The end is near for Twitter as a way to catch the authentic side of a lot of athletes. There are still a ton of great ones out there, but I don’t think it’ll be long before more corporate entities follow suit and make these things as vanilla as personal athlete blogs and whatever else came before. ↵

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