Sport and Twitter isn’t always a disaster

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Twitter has been in and out of the mainstream press headlines over the last few month for a number of sport-related reasons. Some stemmed from ill-judged comments, others from a lack of understanding of how Twitter actually works, and the media seems to have pounced on the fact that an interesting tweet can make for a very cheap story.

Two jump out above the rest. In football, then-Spurs striker Darren Bent grew frustrated during protracted negotiations over his move to Sunderland and vented a series of irate tweets in the direction of club chairman Daniel Levy – not a great idea with the transfer still very much in the balance.

“Do I wanna go Hull City NO. Do I wanna go stoke NO do I wanna go sunderland YES so stop f****** around levy”

Spelling and punctuation issues aside, the papers jumped at the chance to write a story that contained both controversy and that newfangled web thing the kids are all talking about, so Twitter became the tool that earned Bent the move he wanted. (more…)