Benefits of Social Networking

  In an article on Medill Reports Chicago, Michael Tomko reports on the growing influence of social media and its impact on college sports.  We have talked a lot about how the social networking sites influence sports in today’s world and I thought that this article fully demonstrated many of the different ways that it has an impact.

The media is an avenue where fans can get and feel more connected with their team.  The media can get fans more excited about their team and be more informed with the happenings of the team.  It is beneficial to the fans because they can feel more connected and have more enthusiasm for their team.  They can be better informed about what is going on.

The social networking sites, however, are even more beneficial to the universities.  The sites are very cheap for the universities to produce, but they have a plethora of benefits.  The universities can get their fans more involved with what is going on at the university.  They can make the fans feel more connected with the team.  They can also do promotions to benefit the university through these networking sites.  Currently, the bigger universities have more support for the networking sites based on the number of “likes” on Facebook and followers on twitter, but the smaller schools are definitely benefiting from the sites.  Before, the smaller schools had a very difficult time getting their name out there, especially with no television contracts, but now with the cheap social networking media, they can make their name be known.