By creating their own Twitter accounts, professional sports teams are accepting that the benefits of using social media outweigh the negatives of having to listen to fans air out their grievances. Twitter makes it easy for fans to voice their frustrations directly to the team after a tough loss, and that’s exactly what Missouri resident Travis Wright chose to do after the team’s loss to to Atlanta.
“I’m not much of a @kcchiefs fan anymore,” he wrote. “(Chiefs owner) Clark Hunt’s yearly 30m under the cap bulls*** is unethical. Greedy (expletive) owners can (expletive) off cc @nfl.”
This type of thing happens all the time, but for some reason the person in charge of the Chiefs twitter account that day was in no mood. He or she sent the following direct message to Wright and Wright promptly shared it with his 100,000-plus followers.
“Would help if you had your facts straight. Your choice to be a fan. cc get a clue.”
Clearly the author of the above comment didn’t intend for everyone to see it, but in the year 2012 we have things called screenshots that have the ability to make just about anything go viral. As Amar’e Stoudemire can tell you, saying things via direct message does not ensure that they remain private. The Chiefs, who have blocked Wright from their Twitter page, tweeted the following generic apology on Tuesday.
I apologize to the fans for my response to a tweet sent to me earlier. No excuse for my actions. I am truly sorry and it won’t happen again.
— Kansas City Chiefs (@kcchiefs) September 11, 2012
“It shows me that they don’t care about the fans, and I wanted to show that to everyone and sort of amplify it,” Wright said. “Because if you are in the Midwest, you need to have some Midwestern values, and you need to be able to communicate effectively with the fans — who are, essentially, the ones paying for everything you have.”
The Chiefs declined further comment but did tell KSHB that the apology was in direct relation to the exchange with Wright. Whoever it was doing the tweeting on Sunday probably won’t be doing the tweeting anymore.
Helmet knock to Shutdown Corner
