I am extremely honored to be amongst the highly intelligent and motivated contributors to Jason Peck’s 2010 Sports and Social Media Predictions, and I really wanted to publish a post about it earlier in the week when the predictions first came out, but I also wanted to thoroughly read through the entire docket before writing about it, and I could not do that until now.  I was very quiet about it, but this week were Final Exams, and in law school, studying and taking those exams consumes quite a bit of time.  Anyway, the tests are beyond me, and I can now return to focusing on my business and the business of sports.

So about Peck’s compilation of sports and social media predictions (an embedded downloadable copy may be found at the bottom of this post)…first of all, I love the cover page.  It is creative and aesthetically pleasing.  A few notes based on my readings are below:

• Brian Gainor mentions that 2010 will be defined by the rise of online video and photo sharing.  I personally believe that online video is going to expand tremendously.  From video calls on your phone, to video conferences on the computer, and especially the eventual ease of recording a video and instantly uploading it to social services.  He mentions Flip Video cameras.  I am actually about to unwrap one that I just received in order to do a special Holiday Product Review of it on the blog.  I have a feeling I am going to get good usage out of that little “toy”.
• Dan Beeman says that teams and leagues will attempt to build their own online communities.  I think they need to tread this water carefully.  If they do create unique communities, they will need to be heavily integrated with the big boys (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube).  The key is not trying to defeat them, but instead, how to work with them.
• I won’t comment on my own piece.  Instead, I ask that you leave your comments on this post.
• The Blogs With Balls guys see a consolidation of independent voices in the blogosphere.  I sure hope not.  This site has never become a part of a larger entity, even though there have been some pretty lucrative offers on the table.  Independent voices are needed…isn’t that the main reason why blogs started and became popular in the first place?
• I just really like this passage from Espree Devora: “Surf brand means you’re a surfer right? No, not necessarily. You must establish your brand to stand for something. A cause. Something bigger and selflLESS than selling a pair of board shorts.”
• Joe Favorito sees a shift to localization from the shotgun approach being applied today.  Perhaps that is the route for the lesser known public figures, but not the case for a LeBron James.
• J.W. Cannon sees more red tape coming in the future.  Athletes will be limited to what they can say and do by regulations and PR entities.  How does that affect what I said in my piece?
• Lewis Howes makes a good point: sports entities do not only need to be involved in social media in 2010, they need to find new, creative ways to be involved.
• Pat Coyle says there will be more buying and selling of inventory on social media by teams in 2010, but no crazy boy band money just yet.
• I like Peter Robert Casey’s note that social media will be integrated into athletes’ marketing and sponsorship campaigns.  We are already seeing it done with entities like Danica Patrick.  I think it will only expand in the next year.
• Rob Katz makes a great reference to Geoffrey Moore’s argument in Crossing the Chasm.  The mainstream adopters have joined the early adopters on these social media networks.  Now it’s time to figure out how to make it a successful venture for all involved.
• Russell Scibetti notes that social media engagement is time consuming.  Thus, measurement is necessary to make sure that there is value behind that engagement.
• Ryan Stephens is brilliant when he says that strategies must include more than just slapping a sponsor’s logo on a Twitter page.  It’s all about creativity and integration.  What does the brand specifically like about the athlete it wants to sponsor?  How can that athlete use that particular “likeness” to benefit the brand?  Another good point – it’s not only about the number of Twitter followers you have.
• Steve Cobb discusses the power of contests.  Here is a good way to make an athlete sponsorship more fun than just slapping that logo on his page.  And the athletes can then promote the contest to their followings as well.  I disagree about Ustream’s growth among athletes, though.  This is one area where I think sports agents will wise up and tell their clients to stay away.  It takes a very particular athlete to be able to handle live streaming effectively.  Most athletes aren’t suited for it.
• Trevor Turnbull turns the discussion away from ROI and talks about people, relationships, and trust.  Maybe social media is not how you make the money, it’s how you develop the relationships that will make you money.
• Ty Ahman-Taylor talks about how tweets fall short of capturing the full experience of a game, but at least those updates are better than nothing (if you are not at the game or in front of a TV).

You’ve landed a talented athlete as a new client. A professional contract is fast-approaching. When the contract is signed, will the athlete’s online presence be ready?

In sports, the athlete’s name is the brand. So it should come as no surprise the bad guys on the internet, known as cyber-squatters, may try to take advantage of your athlete’s name and brand.

An example: In California, a single cyber-squatter was recently convicted of registering the domain names of nearly 800 basketball players. Domain names are Web browser addresses, like SteveNash.com and ChrisBosh.com. The affected players ranged from NBA pros to top high school and college players. Because of this one squatter, hundred’s of athletes were unable to take the first step into online branding. This was just one squatter — there are thousands of squatters on the NET trying to make money from athletes’ brands.

As an agent, you need to start managing your client’s online brand early —before fame and success attract the cyber-squatters. It’s critical for agents to help athletes create a comprehensive online branding strategy.

Here are 5 simple tips to help agents prepare and protect a player’s online brand:

1. Register a Dot-Com Domain Name

Domain names are Web addresses, so they are the focus of your online branding plan. Having a domain name with your player’s first and/or last name in it, like RogerFederer.COM, is the Grand Slam of Internet branding. The domain is also part of the player’s main email address.

But, web domains are a scarce resource, and are registered on a first-come-first-serve basis —  so even RogerFederer.COM doesn’t own Federer.COM

Once you start searching for an available domain name, you’ll be surprised how hard it is to find an available domain name. If your client has an uncommon name, you may be lucky and still be able to acquire CLIENTNAME.COM. Other good domains to register are nicknames. Shorter domain names are usually better, dashes and digits in a domain name are not as easily remembered by site visitors.

The Dot-Com domain is the most memorable and upscale—it’s far better than the other top-level domains (.NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, .US, etc.).

To register a domain, visit a Domain Registrar like Godaddy.com (http://GoDaddy.com). If the client’s name is available, you can register it for about $8 a year – you’ll need to renew every year or you lose the name. There are also many websites, such as Afternic.com and Sedo.com, that help you buy and acquire domains that are already registered — though auction prices can be exorbitant.

As long as you’re able to get the athlete’s main domain, it’s not worth going overboard speculating on a bunch of domains when an athlete is just starting out. However, keep in mind that the squatters will try to take advantage of typos in web addresses, so you may consider acquiring common misspellings of your client’s name (for Tennis, think Nadall.com, Nedal.com).

Later in this article I have some tips for what to do if you can’t get the name you want.

2. Create Social Networking Accounts

When fans want to find out about an athlete, they’ll go to the social networking sites; MySpace and Facebook are the biggest. With MySpace, you’ve always been able to get a page like http://Myspace.com/CLIENTNAME, so, you’ll want to grab that. Facebook now has that feature, too. And you’ll want to start and take ownership of a Facebook Fan Club for your client.

What content do you put on all these social media sites? It doesn’t matter—you can leave them blank to start with. The main point is that you control the real estate for your brand.

If you or your client does create some content on a social media page, keep the site very professional. Don’t let the athlete use these accounts for gossiping with friends, uploading photos or video of last Saturday night’s party, or other unprofessional uses. Future sponsors and advertisers will be watching, so you need to keep the client’s content squeaky clean and  presentable. Once something is on the Internet, it’s nearly impossible to take it down.

But remember: The main point is to acquire these online properties, even if you don’t use them at first. It’s far better to have nothing on a Web pages than to have cyber-squatters fill the page with advertisements.

3. Create a Twitter Account

Twitter, an online Short Message Service (SMS) site, is extremely popular and growing so quickly that it gets a checklist item all to itself. When fame first strikes, Twitter is where the trendsetters will talk about your client. Beware: Twitter squatters are already grabbing up all the famous Twitter account names.

Signing up for a Twitter account is free, so sign-up for an account name that matches the client’s real name. You may want to update the Twitter status occasionally with things like recent victories and upcoming games. But again, the key is to own the Twitter account for later use and to prevent someone else from controlling the Twitter account.

4. Setup Email and Instant Messaging

Fans, sponsors, advertisers and other vendors will want to communicate with an athlete. When your client owns a COM domain, you can automatically receive all email sent to any address at @CLIENTNAME.COM.

But, as part of a comprehensive branding plan, create free accounts at Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and HotMail: CLIENTNAME@gmail.com, CLIENTNAME@yahoo.com, and CLIENTNAME@msn.com. Setup the accounts so that they invisibly forward email to a single address.

Additionally, try to get brandable accounts for AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger.

5. Setup Voicemail

For a business phone number, you can set up a free GoogleVoice (http://voice.google.com) account, which comes with a free phone number in almost any area code. Configure GoogleVoice to automatically forward voice-mail to your email accounts as an audio/text attachment. Or you can forward all GoogleVoice calls to your cell phone (the forwarding will be invisible to the caller).

If your client needs to speak with the press by phone, he or she can easily make phone calls through the GoogleVoice account using their existing cell phone. Have the client use the GoogleVoice as a business phone number for all sports-related activities to prevent the athlete’s personal phone information from becoming mixed with the athlete’s career info. Keeping an athlete’s professional life and personal life separate will also help protect the athlete’s privacy.

Troubleshooting Your Brand

What do you do if you can’t get all of the above items? Well, if your athlete’s name is very common like Joe Smith, then he’s a little late to the Internet party. But you can still try for domains like “JoeSmithHockey.com”.

What if fame has already struck and the athlete’s brand is already cyber-squatted? There are laws to protect an athlete’s name and brand. Contact an intellectual property attorney who specializes in trademarks. If the athlete’s name is fairly unique, having a lawyer send a letter to the various social media sites can often get them transferred to the player. Gaining control of a squatted domain is a little more complicated, but an attorney can definitely help to acquire it. Solving cyber-squatting problems through the legal system will cost you a lot more time and effort than doing it right the first time.

Be Ready for Fame…

Most importantly, it’s critical to be a few steps ahead of the cyber-squatters. With the first whiff of fame, squatters will notice an up-and-coming player and grab up all the prime Internet real estate related to that player. You can reduce future legal costs by keeping up with online trends and by beating the squatters to the prime Internet real estate. Your client’s future sponsors will appreciate a clean online-brand that isn’t full of Internet spam.

Remember: Your job as an agent is to help plan for the athlete’s entire career. It’s never too early to get a player’s brand ready. By spending a little effort up front, you can make future success that much sweeter.

Over the past week, I have received many calls and messages from friends, colleagues, family, and clients, asking me who Jay Hairston (on the left, wearing the cap) is and why he was sending them “friend requests” on Facebook.  Originally, I thought it was just a coincidence that I was the only “mutual friend” on these peoples friend lists.  After the fifth call/message, I started to get curious.

On Monday evening, I decided to finally do something about it.  I did a search for “Jay Hairston” on Facebook and was greeted with a profile picture displaying Athletes Premier International’s logo.  I also noticed that we had over 150 friends in common, yet Jay never friended me on Facebook.  Did we just know a lot of the same people and had never met?  Again, his friends included former roommates, fraternity brothers, and family of mine (who have less than 50 friends total on Facebook).  Most concerning was that this guy I had never met nor heard of was sending friend requests to all of my clients.

Since I was not friends with Jay Hairston, I could not read his profile.  I went to API’s website, and found that his name was completely omitted.  This is where I started to get really concerned.  I sent a few tweets to API’s twitter account, asking for an explanation.  The only response I received was Jay Hairston changing his Facebook privacy settings to restrict me from finding him in a Facebook search results page.

I had one of my friends who had accepted Jay’s friendship request pull up his profile, and that friend let me know that Jay lists himself as the Vice President of Player Relations and Recruiting.  At this point, I knew something very shady was going on.  What business does a rival agency have in reaching out to my entire network?  There is nothing illegal about making friend requests to people you have never met, but it sure does make you and your company look very shady.

This is an interesting and silly tactic for a brand new agency.  Athletes Premier International has one baseball client, and it is a big one: Aroldis Chapman.  First of all, I have given the agency no reason to solicit my friends, family, or clients.  Second of all, the company has received good press thus far in its shopping of Chapman to various MLB teams, does it need to now resort to dirty tactics to grow further?  Third, why is Jay Hairston not listed on the company’s website?  And of all employees, I have most concern about a VP of Player Relations and Recruiting contacting my clients.

I reached out to Jay and he was nice enough to respond in a timely manner.  Additionally, he was pleasant in his responses, but I think I was more upset that he was lying to my face than anything else.  I would have been happier if he was blatantly honest and told me to go screw myself.  Here is what he said to me in our conversation thread.  Let me know if you think he is being genuine.

Mr Heitner.  By no means am I attempting to do anything shady as you put it.  I am simply networking!  I do appologize if I offended you in anyway.  This was not my intentions.

My response:

You are telling me the truth that you friended former roommates and fraternity brothers of mine in an effort to network?  What value do they bring to the table?

What networking did you hope to do by friending my clients that I have listed on my agency’s website?

I am not out to hurt your company or anyone elses company.  I am more than happy with representing the clients I currently have and using those gentlemen to provide solid referrals.  I truly hope that you have no cruel intentions.  I believe that most men are honest, and I will take you at your word, even though your actions (including preventing me from pulling your name up on a search) should lead me to believe otherwise.

I have documented everything thus far and encourage you to stay away from my friends and clients.  You guys just picked up a superstar; I firmly believe that continuing to “network” with my friends and clients will not be worth your while.

I accept your apology and hope that we can put this entire matter behind us.

His last response was very nice, but I believe that it was entirely mocking the situation at hand.

Mr Heitner, as for friending former roommates and fraternity brothers of yours, yes it is random!  I am NOT in the practice of stealing or attempting to steal anyones clients!  Its not who I am as a person or who API is as a company.  I am simply trying to get our name out there!  That is all!  In my expierience the more people that know who you are and what it is you do. The better off a business will be.  As you know, people do talk.  So whether that’s the gas attendant at your local gas station or an athlete at a university.  You never know who will be the link to that next big client!  Once again I do appologize for the simple misunderstanding!

You are simply trying to get your company’s name out to my friends, family, and clients?  Create a blog, send out tweets, contact athletes that are not already represented, but solicit my friends list on Facebook?  I doubt my step-father is going to be the link to your next big client.  There is no misunderstanding about what transpired.

And as for Jay Hairston’s Facebook status as of yesterday, it read: “we must be doing something right…”  I agree, if that something is “getting your name out there” in an unethical manner.

My colleague Douglas Sanders with The Sports Link introduced me to the new service, which strives to make it easier for athletes to connect with their fans by providing “text only once, but update fans everywhere” convenience.  If an athlete sends a text message to MogoTXT, MogoTXT can automatically forward that message to the athlete’s fans on MogoTXT, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and all other websites.

Terrell Owens, Shane Battier, Chris “Beanie” Wells, Santonio Holmes, Jordan Farmar, and even Mr. Holdout, Michael Crabtree, are on board, along with many more athletes and rising journalists.  Some entities use the service more than others.  T.O. is updating the world on his life almost every second of the day…Beanie Wells, not so much.

In addition to providing ease and convenience to athletes, MogoTXT is able to aggregate the fans of an athlete that are located on several different websites into a single large audience to enable the athlete to achieve critical mass much faster for purposes of fan relations, marketing, advertising, etc.  The theory is that the service will empower athletes and their agents to strike better endorsement deals by enhancing athletes’ reach and providing marketing data.

MogoTXT can also facilitate revenue generation for athletes and their selected charities by working with athletes and their agents to feature desirable ads and clickable links to additional content and ads at the bottom of the athletes’ text messages before these messages are displayed on MogoTXT and also distributed to fans on all of the major social networks.

And for the Yao Mings and Kobe Bryants with huge international appeal, MogoTXT can also translate the messages into foreign languages on a near real-time basis.

Best of all, the service is free for its clients and their fans.

The result = {Rules of PR no. 13} Sports and Social Media: A Case Study

Social media can create leverage for a sports agent in a ton of ways.  For one, it can separate a sports agent from his competition by offering a new PR, advertising, branding medium for his clients.  Social media also can create valuable connections for a sports agent to tap into when needed.  But what about using social media to create leverage in a contractual negotiation?  Emmett Jones believes that players can use social media platforms to reveal private figures and make the fans (who Jones says truly pays the contracts) make the decision by making their opinions known to ownership.

Let me say right now that this is a really bad idea for athletes and/or their agents.  There might not be anything illegal about revealing proposed terms while in negotiation (unless the parties agree to secrecy), but there is more for the athlete and agent to lose than gain.  A negotiation is not a war, it is supposed to be an amicable debate where both parties come out as winners.  By alienating ownership and getting the fans involved through a social media tactic, the athlete/agent is making it more of a battle between the player and management.  This could have bad implications for the athlete and agent in the long term.  Also, sponsors will be hesitant to come forth and many deals to the athlete.  Why take the chance when the athlete could go behind the sponsor’s back and post something derogatory on a social network, which can spread like wildfire?

So to answer Emmett’s question, no, I cannot see agents like Scott Boras or Drew Rosenhaus utilizing social media in this way.  Instead, you can continue to count on Rosenhaus to send about ten tweets a day, all at the same time, talking about how amazing each of his clients is and how they are each the best on their respective teams.  I may not be very interested in it, but at least he isn’t pissing any owners off.

As far as what Owen Daniels recently did, with updating his Facebook status about not showing up to practice…it is not all that smart, but it’s not as bad as some have made it out to be.  I think it would have been worse if his agent wrote the same thing on his own Facebook wall.  As agents, we have a higher standard to uphold.  We call ourselves professionals, so let’s act like it.  P.S. – Daniels signed an RFA tender with the Texans.

Here is part of Cam’s initial email:

For the NCAA, the issue of social networking is less about the technology and more about the recruiting aspect. Our members are concerned about the level of intrusion in a young person’s life related to recruiting, and the celebrity culture that can develop around the recruitment process, which is why limits are placed on how often coaches can contact recruits.  Contrary to what you stated in your blog entry, the NCAA’s recruiting bylaws have not changed in any way.  The NCAA is taking those existing recruiting rules and applying them to these new communication platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Text messaging was prohibited in 2007 based on the urging of student-athletes and the student-athlete advisory committee (SAAC) who felt their lives were being intruded upon, not to mention the escalating costs they were seeing from the usage of the texts.  Now if a prospective student-athlete chooses to have the Twitter and/or Facebook direct messages come to them through their phone, that is their prerogative to do, as long as the coach is using the social networking application and not texting himself/herself. (Division III adopted more stringent legislation that strictly prohibits the use of social networking sites within the athletics recruiting process, including e-mail functions.  This legislation’s adoption was based on the urging of Division III student-athletes in 2008.)

In relation to these rules/bylaws and agents, they still remain in place as well.  Your blog is wrong when it states that NCAA rules prohibit contact with student-athletes until a certain point of their collegiate careers.  I want to clarify that NCAA rules do not prohibit student-athletes from having contact with an agent. NCAA rules do, however, prohibit a student-athlete or their family and friends from having an agreement – oral or written – with an agent or accept benefits from an agent until his or her eligibility expires.

An important thing to remember is that just because the NCAA rules do not prohibit student-athletes from having contact with an agent, individual states may limit what an agent can and cannot do in terms of contacting potential clients.  States that have signed onto the UAAA prohibit an agent from initiating contact with a student-athlete unless registered with those states.  In a follow-up email, Cam had this to say:

INCAA rules do not prohibit agents from having contact with prospective student-athletes, current student-athletes and/or their families or friends.  What the NCAA rules do clearly state is that no agreement – oral and/or written – may be in place between an agent and a student-athlete (nor their families or friends), nor may a student-athlete accept benefits from an agent, until his or her eligibility has expired.

So along those lines, there are no restrictions between agents and student-athletes in the NCAA rules/bylaws as far as communicating through social networking … AS LONG AS no oral and/or written agreement has been made.

What the NCAA rules/bylaws state in specific regard to coaches contact with recruits through social networking is that the one-to-one forms of communication through those sites (direct messages, emails, etc.) are allowed.  What is not permitted in regard to social networking sites are that a coach may not post messages on their own walls or Twitter pages about a recruit, nor post messages on a recruit’s wall/Twitter page.

Also, please note that these rules are for Division I and Division II ONLY.  Division III does not allow any form of communication through social networking sites.

From this, I gather that agents not only can Facebook message/Twitter Direct Message potential clients, but can post on their walls and @ reply to them as well.  As Cam stated, there are no restrictions between agents and student-athletes in the NCAA rules/bylaws as far as communicating through social networking.  Before you go ahead and get crazy with your wall posts, though, make sure that you are not violating any state rules.

The NCAA has formally approved the use of Twitter for recruiting purposes.  This is definitely big news for college coaches, who will use Twitter to sent direct messages to high school recruits.  But what about agents?  Agents are bound by strict NCAA regulations that prohibit contact with a student athletes until a certain point of their collegiate careers (depending on the sport).  Now, can agents, like college coaches, use sites like Twitter and Facebook to talk to athletes of any age, as long as they follow specific instructions?  These are the instructions for coaches:

1. On Twitter, stay away from @ comments.  Instead of reaching out to student-athletes by sending a message via @ reply, send it in a direct message.  This way, the conversation is 2-way and not open for all to see.
2. On Facebook, stay away from wall posts.  Send messages to individuals, instead.  Again, this creates the 2-way convo and does not allow others to chime in.
3. No problem being an athlete’s Friend on Facebook or Follower on Twitter.

Such Facebook messages and Twitter direct messages are considered to be the equivalent of an e-mail or blog post.  Interestingly, Instant Messages and text messages are still prohibited.  Almost anyone who uses Twitter on a phone receives Facebook and Twitter messages as texts…why make the distinction when there really is none?  A text is also kept private like a Direct Message on Twitter.  Is it because Facebook messages and Twitter DMs leave a trail, whereas texts are not kept on any type of server?  This way, just in case, the NCAA could sweep in and take over a student-athlete’s account and check on the messages going back and forth; something you cannot do with texts, which are often times deleted from a phone after roughly 15 days.

Anyway, NCAA Division I Bylaw 13.4.1.2 does not make it clear as to whether or not agents now have the same rights as coaches.  Anyone at the NCAA reading this that can fill us in?

As more and more athletes and their agents begin to accept social media devices, professional leagues are also gaining a strong presence on the social networking sites.  However, whereas the athletes are publicly posting information that is widely disseminated to a large audience of followers, the various leagues have decided to create much different identities on the popular sites.  Leagues are employing personal to create covert, and often fake, identities in order to keep track of its active players and future players.  Teams are also using such techniques to filter the talented players with little “social baggage” from those who like to post pictures holding guns, displaying bad drinking habits, etc.

And teams are doing it in a very creative and effective way…

But they’re doing it in a rather interesting and some might argue unethical way. NFL personnel are setting up Facebook profiles that look to be that of an attractive woman. From there, they send friend requests and messages to the players they are evaluating.

If the unsuspecting future NFL star accepts it, suddenly, the teams evaluating them have access to their personal information and photos, which, could raise all sorts of questions about the athlete if they have anything unflattering in their profile.

I have said it many times…new social networking technologies greatly empower the star athlete with an existing large following.  It also helps the largely undiscovered talent find additional fans and supporters by exposing a charming or interesting personality.  However, these sites can end up killing an athlete’s career if not used correctly.

It is very important for athletes and their agents to hire consultants to teach athletes the best practices for using these social media devices, have those consultants set the athletes up with accounts on the various services that are appropriate for the client (not every athlete should be on Twitter or have a Yardbarker Blog), and make those consultants follow the athlete’s social media habits (including the posting of information, pictures, video, etc).

I have done some consulting work in the past.  Another big name in the industry concerning this type of work is Kathleen Hessert, who has really made a name for herself for teaching Shaq how to Tweet on Twitter.  Through her company, Sports Media Challenge, Hessert has been able to help many other high-profile athletes become social media pros in a short period of time.  It really is not a long process and is well worth whatever the price may be for consulting.  The amount of damage one person can do to his/her image and endorsement profile is 100 times the cost of hiring a consultant.  Additionally, having a strong social media presence can greatly increase the value of one’s image and endorsement profile, paying for the consultation multiple times over based on additional profits.  Now that leagues and teams are tracking athletes on these sites, it is even more important to make sure that your clients have the proper training to manage the potential risks associated with having a presence on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

I own a sports agency, but that does not mean that I am unavailable for consultation on these issues.  If interested, you know the email address!