Why Twitter scares the NFL

The league wants to restrict fans’ use of Twitter and Facebook to protect its TV contracts. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!

With 45 million monthly unique visitors, the microblogging site Twitter has emerged as an ideal platform for broadcasting personal opinions on nearly every subject matter. The National Football League, the powerful sports league with more than $4 billion in annual television revenues alone, thinks all that frivolous tweeting could seriously damage its business.

In preparation for the upcoming season, the NFL has instituted a set of new guidelines attempting to restrict how fans can use social media applications like Facebook and Twitter to talk about professional football. Under the rules, the NFL says fans are encouraged to circulate messages about teams and players, but cannot post play-by-play accounts of actual games.

The NFL also aims to prohibit fans attending games in person from posting large quantities of videos shot from the stands onto sites capable of hosting videos, such as YouTube, Facebook or MySpace. The NFL sells exclusive rights to television networks and radio stations to broadcast the games, says NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy, and posting text or video recaps of each play could undermine the league and its broadcasting partners’ efforts to make money airing the games.

If the NFL identifies fans violating the new rules, league officials say they’ll contact them and tell them to stop posting text or video. If fans refuse, the league will consider filing a lawsuit, McCarthy said.

The strong-armed tactics demonstrate how worried sports leagues are about the impact of social media on their business. But they also open the NFL up to a potentially ugly legal battle if the league cracks down on fans.

The NFL “has no property right over fans’ tweets,” says Wendy Seltzer, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Fans have the same right guaranteed by the First Amendment to publish accounts of football games, even in play-by-play form, that any news organization would, she argues.

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