"EA and ESPN Kick Off Madden NFL 25 Cover Vote"

From ESPN

Review by Austin Davidson in SRM 334 (section 3)
On August 27, 2013, EA Sports’ Madden video game franchise will release its 25th anniversary edition installment. Since 2011, EA Sports has tried to find ways to get the fans more involved in the process of how each player deemed worthy to grace the cover, every year, is selected. Befitting such a monumental anniversary, this year has taken it above and beyond any previous year’s aspirations. The usage of ESPN television shows, social media (esp. Twitter), and many internet web destinations, has created an unprecedented buzz around the game, almost six months before its release. 

The way the voting for the cover player is a familiar concept to many sports fans. One word; brackets! It has been narrowed down to 64 players, half of which are NFL legends, and the other half are up-and-coming stars in the National Football League. The fans can vote by going to the ESPN website, and some live-tweet voting on Twitter is carried out during ESPN’s SportsNation television show. After each round of voting, the results are revealed on the show, with the overall winner being revealed on April 24, 2013.

I find this to be tremendous marketing strategy for everyone involved in the process. This idea has brought the internet and social media, and television into an incredibly effective and interactive relationship. The companies have found more ways to connect with their demographics and even got the rising hip hop star, Kendrick Lamar, to perform on the SportsNation Madden Cover Vote kickoff show. It has created a buzz most video game companies would die for, this early before release. I am fairly certain we’ll be seeing more of this type of collaborative efforts between EA Sports, and ESPN to milk this newly found cash-cow as much as possible.
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Review by Allison Straley in SRM 334 (section 3)
The Madden NFL Cover Vote is in the middle of their second time having fans vote what player should appear on the cover of the popular EA Sports game, Madden NFL. 

Each week fans have the opportunity to vote in two brackets, old-school, which consists of former players, and new-school, which consists of current players. They players “face off” each week in hopes of advancing and gaining that spot on the cover of the game. Fans are able to vote through the ESPN website as well as Twitter.

The program SportsNation, which airs on ESPN2, has weekly updates for fans on which former and current players have advanced. They also bring some of the players on the show where they can plead their case on why they should receive votes. The winner will be announced April 24th, and the game will be released August 27th. 

Having fans vote on who should be the cover player is a great way for everyone across the nation to get involved in something that is extremely popular. ESPN and EA Sports are using media outlets that have a lot of viewers/usage, such as SportsNation and Twitter. This topic is relevant to the course because media is being used in multiple aspects to get an event known to the public. The different aspects of media, such as advertising, public relations and strategy are presented in this topic. The advertising is through the ESPN website and on the show and Twitter. Public relations was big at the launch party for the competition for the cover. Finally, the strategy is to get as many people to vote and that is occurring by using popular media outlets. The game is very popular and giving the consumers a say in what the game with look like, gives it the potential for even more success.

"Richard Sherman To Skip Bayless: 'I'm Better At Life Than You'"

From the Huffington Post

Review by Schuyler LaClair in SRM 334 (section 2)

Professional athletes have many different ways and strategies to get their name known through out the sports world, which also grabs the attention of the media. Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman has done just that in a matter of months starting from controversies in just a couple games during the 2012 season. Not only did the spot light shine on Sherman during the season but also after the season was over he has multiple occasions of venting through social media and expressing how he felt in open interviews on television.

During the 2012 season Richard Sherman talked trash before and during games. One game that stood out was when the Seahawks upset the Patriots 24 – 23. After the game Sherman went up to New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady screaming “You mad bro?” Two weeks later Sherman predicted that he would shut down Detroit Lions all pro wide receiver Calvin “Megatron” Johnson and gave himself the nickname of “Optimus Prime.”

When the 2012 offseason started, Sherman got into a heated twitter battle with New York Jets cornerback Derrelle Revis about who was the best cornerback in the National Football League. Then Richard Sherman was a guest on ESPN’s “First Take.” While interviewed by Skip Bayless, Sherman blew up on Skip and just expressed how he felt towards him. While on national television, Sherman showed no respect to the show’s host.

Richard Sherman and the events he’s been involved in recently is related to sports media by how athletes decide to act off the field. When an athlete goes on a rant over social media or television, the media loves giving the athlete the attention they basically asked for. Anytime an athlete goes outside the boundary lines of generalized answers during an interview, it gains the attention of every media outlet in the sports industry. Richard Sherman knows what he has done and hasn’t slowed down since then. His name will known in every household if he keeps going on this path.
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Review by Cameron McKinley in SRM 334 (section 2)

In today sports world, athletes have been known to use various media outlets as a way to vent frustrations or to promote their own brand, whether through traditional media sources, such as television or print media, or newer forms of media, i.e. social media. Richard Sherman has not been on the scene for very long, but he has certainly made use of these forms of media for both purposes. Following his Twitter feud with fellow cornerback Darelle Revis, Sherman took to TV and radio to try to promote his off-season charitable cause, Students with a Goal. While making the rounds for this, he came on to ESPN’s “First Take” and immediately began personally attacking co-host Skip Bayless.

With athletes continually being brought on media programs, whether TV or radio or social media, they are now subjecting themselves to more scrutiny than ever before. They way an athlete handles himself or herself in the media can greatly affect how they are seen as a player. Take Derek Jeter for example. He has always handled himself very well when dealing with aspects of the media, and his on the field accomplishments are magnified and are able to speak for themselves. But with a young, relatively unknown player such as Sherman, such a portrayal in the media can be detrimental to his image and can make people look past his on the field statistics or success when all they know about him is how he handles himself in the media.

Being that this is a class based upon sports media, in the past we have focused on such media outlets and the evolution of the Sports Communication Model. In the past, it would not have been possible for a player such as Sherman to take to all the media outlets to promote himself and his causes, nor to have his feud with Revis and Bayless. He was able to reach the wider sports audiences through his TV rounds, as well as to reach more niche, local markets through radio and Twitter. This is also a two-way street with fans being able to show their reaction directly to him by being able to call in to radio shows he was on or to tweet at him following everything that has happened in the off-season.

"Manti Te'o causing NFL teams to mine social media more"

From USA Today

Review by Connor Massei in SRM 334 (section 3)

The article from USA Today.com explains that NFL General Managers and Coaches are focusing more on draft prospect involvement on social media than ever before. This focus is greatly due to the highly publicized Manti Te’o hoax, in which one of the NFL’s highest rated prospects was involved in a false relationship with an imaginary girlfriend. Te’o communicated with whom he believed to be his girlfriend strictly through phone calls and the social networks, namely twitter. NFL organizations, more often than ever before, have personnel that monitor prospects tendencies on twitter and Facebook. These tendencies and posts are closely analyzed and sometimes play an effect on players draft stocks. Personally, Te’o now has more pressure to perform on pre-draft interviews due to his involvement in the hoax and poor judgment that could be seen on social media. 

This article helps its audience to understand that NFL GMs and Coaches care more about prospects than their physical talents shown on the field. It is important to them that their players show character, and an efficient way to get to know a prospect indirectly is through monitoring of their twitter and Facebook pages. I think it is interesting how much of an impact the tendencies of prospects on social networks can affect their draft stock, or even prevent them from being drafted at all. This new practice by NFL organizations is just one more dimension for NFL hopefuls to be aware of throughout college and during the pre-draft process. The article is relevant to this course because as we have discussed in class, the social media plays an important role in sports these days. The fact that NFL teams monitor player’s twitters and Facebook pages demonstrates the ability for social media to potentially spark, dampen, or even ruin the career of potential professional athletes. Sports media greatly utilizes social networks, and this article is a prime example of why they are so often used.
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Review by Michael Civiello in SRM 334 (section 3)

In summary, this article goes over how the so called “hoax” of Manti Te’o is now making NFL teams and their executives re-evaluate their own ways on how they will evaluate college prospects prior to the NFL draft. It has quotes from two NFL general managers: Rick Spielman of the Minnesota Vikings and John Schneider of the Seattle Seahawks. Spielman is quoted as calling the evaluated players “social media players” nowadays. He talks about how teams are now digging more in depth into players’ social media pages. John Schneider of the Seahawks said the team has a security staff assigned to monitor social media pages of potential prospects the team is scouting.

Spielman and head coach Greg Schiano of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers both emphasized the importance of the interview process that teams get with players at the combine. They both said that the fifteen minutes they get with prospects, especially a player such as Te’o, will be very crucial in determining the player’s football smarts but also their character.

Social media is so relevant in today’s world, especially with the national media outlets. Many players do not have private pages and that makes them susceptible to getting looked at by teams that will monitor their pages. These players definitely have to be more careful because posting inappropriate tweets or pictures can cost players lots of money because they fall far down draft boards and potentially undrafted. It is dream to many of the prospects to play in the NFL and its sometimes unthinkable that something as small as a post on twitter can potentially ruin that dream.