Social media is perceived as an important aspect of the sports industry, as certain individuals like journalists and fans can develop an insight of the athlete’s personal life. Virtually every league, team and sports association are currently engaged within the social media website “twitter”. Social media is obligatory in the sports industry landscape, moreover, many athletes are increasingly subject to suffocating sense of “24/7 ownership” by the media, public, sponsors, and administrators. The public interest is viewed as something in which the public find noteworthy. Protagonists agree that social media for athletes is a form of privacy invasion, as the internet has become a deceptive mind field. Impractical tweets with the multitude of opinions posted by fans have predominantly caused numerous footballers and their family’s enormous mental …show more content…
Fundamentally, Twitter is a source in which fans flock to before, during and after the sporting games. In saying that, the behaviour of an athlete on social media can ultimately influence the fan’s perception of an athlete. Many athletes excel at using Twitter and furthermore engage with fans. The influence of Twitter has increased rapidly within the sports industry in the past few years. During 2013 50% of tweets were regarding TV, moreover, a total of 492 million tweets were about sports events. It is evident that sports events encompassed 12 of the most “Top 20 most-Tweeted-About” TV broadcast throughout the year, according to research. Social media for an athlete can be used as a source to promote good behaviour which can majorly influence fans. Social media, Twitter, in particular, has become an essential element of sports fandom. However, critics believe social media adversely impacts athletes as they are perceived as role models by their supporters, in addition, bad behaviour can be further copied by young fans. This can be evidently explained by the Essendon scandal, the Essendon Football club are an AFL team based in Melbourne and have existed since 1871. They have won 16 premierships, which is the highest number of any club in the AFL. It is extensively understood that Essendon players took peptides during 2012. When consuming