Generally speaking, Twitter is nothing but trouble in the world of professional sports. While there are plenty of players who have used Twitter as a tool to interact with fans and make themselves more accessible, there a ton of others who have abused the social networking tool and used it to lighten their wallets. We have seen players fined for tweeting during halftime and others ruin the public’s perception of them by tweeting about extremely sensitive subjects. Athletes like Chad Ochocinco have used their Twitter account to create a complete sideshow.
UFC president Dana White views Twitter quite differently from big wigs like David Stern and Roger Goodell. White, who is an active Twitter user, recently announced that he will be paying fighters for using Twitter. According to MMAFighting.com, beginning June 1 UFC and Strikeforce fighters will be awarded bonuses based on how many followers they have and whether or not they tweet creatively. At the end of each quarter, three bonuses of $5,000 will be given to the fighters with the most new followers, highest percentage of new followers, and most creative tweets (judged by White).
When all the bonuses are paid out, the UFC will end up shelling out $240,000 for Twitter incentives. With the way the beast has grown, I’m fairly confident that’s a number they can handle. If you think paying athletes to use Twitter is asking for trouble, remember that you’re questioning the idea of a man who took the UFC from nothing into a fighting league that has arguably surpassed boxing in popularity. If Dana White says it’s a good idea, it’s probably a good idea.
