Nba Social Media Player Guidelines

NBA announces social media policy

If y'all're like me, you lot've been waiting with aside breath for the NBA to finally announce its social media policy for the 2009-10 season.

That day finally came on Wednesday, and I can't say I'1000 unhappy with any of it.

Writes ESPN's Marc Stein:

The NBA formally announced its new social media guidelines Wednesday, informing teams through a league memorandum that the use of jail cell phones, PDAs and other electronic communications devices — and thus accessing Twitter, Facebook and similar social media sites — is now prohibited during games for players, coaches and other team personnel involved in the game.

The league has defined "during games" as the period of time kickoff 45 minutes before the opening tip and ending "after the postgame locker room is open to the media and coaches and players have showtime fulfilled their obligation to be available to media attention the game."

"During games" also encompasses halftime, according to the memo, simply the new guidelines do allow players to engage in social networking during the pregame media ccess period that starts xc minutes before tipoff and lasts for 45 minutes.

All in all, it's about what I expected, and as Stein notes, it's "less stringent" than the NFL's social media policy, which doesn't allow pretty much anyone involved with the NFL to tweet from 90 minutes before kickoff until subsequently postgame media availability.

I like that the NBA starts the restricted time 45 minutes before the game, because from being in the locker room in the 1:30 to 0:45 infinitesimal marks before tipoff, players are mainly just relaxing at their lockers if they don't accept any treatment to be getting, and they should be allowed to tweet to their heart'southward content at this time while nothing else ie going on.

Charlie Villanueva did bring upward an interesting point when he questioned how a halftime tweet is any different than a halftime interview. The reply is that halftime tweets don't pay the NBA millions upon millions of dollars to broadcast its games, and unfortunately that'south the answer to a number of questions involved with the league. I don't think there'due south whatever harm in halftime tweets, but it's off-white for them to be function of the ban.

Stein besides wrote that the Heat, Raptors, Bucks and Clippers are among the teams imposing more stringent guidelines, which the leagues rules let, basically taking away social media during "team fourth dimension."

Suns VP of digital media Jeramie McPeek told me a few weeks back that the Suns were not planning on enforcing any guidelines beyond what the league rules stipulate, and expert for them.

In instance you oasis't been reading me lately, the Suns are social media. Hell, it seems like the entire organisation is on Twitter. The Suns all but forcefulness their players to be on Twitter, so I don't expect this policy to change annihilation about their social media presence.

Now I can go back to worrying most more important things, such as whether Lou Amundson will surpass his career 43 percentage costless-throw shooting this flavour.

If you tin even believe Paul Coro's latest report, in which Lou apparently drilled 96 of 100 tosses from the foul stripe last week, in that location is hope.

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