"Fans Reactions To Caleb Moore's Death"

From Sports World Report

Review by Heather Holston in SRM 334 (section 3)

The article for my current events is “Fans React to Caleb Moore’s Death”. The article describes how fans are reaching out after the X Games participant’s death. Caleb Moore passed away a week after being involved in a crash during the X Games. He was involved in the snowmobile freestyle portion. After his death, ESPN said they are looking into safety of the X Games and its athletes. His fans have taken to social media to give their condolences and prayers to his family. A Facebook page named “Praying for Caleb” has been created for words of comfort. Many fans also turned to Twitter to express their feelings on the situation. This is relevant to our class because we focus a lot on how social media usage is increasing. We all know that social media is used for marketing and communication in sports. I think even more people, especially fans, are using this to connect to other people when an incident occurs. Pages and Tweets are now created daily for professional athletes and people in the sports industry. I believe that Caleb Moore’s death shows us how that usage is expanding. People now turn to Twitter and Facebook to be heard and connect to athlete’s families. Another group on Facebook was created to sell t-shirts and wristbands to support the Moore family. Without the usage of technology, the fans would have a harder time to give back and connect. I believe that with the increase of technology, this will continue to grown. There are a lot more apps and devices that will allow fans to do so. I feel that also when there is more controversy around an athletes death or life, fans are going to want more of an inlet. I feel that Facebook and especially Twitter are the way for fans to get to that inlet. It helps fans share their own ideas where in the past this was harder. 

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Review by Steven Mashinski in SRM 334 (section 3)

As a fan of snowboarding I have been a viewer of the x games for years. Although I did not know Caleb before this accident, I do know that these athletes put themselves in extreme danger. Caleb Moore was a 25 year old that was competing in the snow mobile freestyle. He was performing a black flip when his accident occurred on January 24th. Moore went off a jump and on his landing the front of his snowmobile skies caught the ground before he was able to rotate fully. This caused him to be ejected face first in to the snow followed by the 450 pound snowmobile rolling over his body. Emergency precautions took place immediately and eventually they allowed him to walk off in his own power. Until they arrived to hospital they had no idea how serious the injuries really were. Moore had blood surrounding his heart and announced by his family he came up with secondary complications to his brain. He passed away on January 29th at a hospital in Colorado. His accident raised questions about how safe this sport really is and how they can fix it, but shockingly enouh he is the first athlete to die in the 18 years of the X-games. This story in relevant to this class due to the attention it received on social media. Seconds after the extreme crash viewers were talking about it on twitter. They did not know the severity of his injuries but they could tell it was not good and proceeded to wish him well and hope he is ok. Moore’s family released a statement saying he is in critical condition and the impact of social media got even stronger with Facebook groups and hash tags on twitter that people could use to raise he attention. Before we had social media this story would have had tons of questions due to how much slower information was distributed and released by the reporters on hand. I think this is extremely interesting because now that I am accustom to how fast news can spread it makes me wonder how I was able to wait and watch Sportscenter to hear if that athlete was okay.