The National Football League and its players have been in the headlines recently for all the wrong reasons. As a result of what many experts are calling the “worst week in NFL history,” a number of NFL teams and league executives have to deal with the consequences of the actions of some of their most prominent players. The big issue in the NFL right now is domestic abuse. The issue was first brought to the forefront after TMZ posted a video of a physical altercation at a hotel between Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and his then-fiancée. Rice was originally suspended for just the first two games of the season after the NFL reviewed the incident. Many fans and experts alike spoke out against the suspension, due to the fact that they thought it was too lenient on Rice. After an extended video of the incident showed the full extent to which Rice assaulted his fiancée, Rice was handed an indefinite suspension by the NFL and released by the Baltimore Ravens on September 8. It only got worse for the NFL from that point on. On September 12, the league’s star running back, Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings, was indicted on charges of reckless or negligent injury to a child, and has since been suspended by the Vikings. And if you thought things couldn’t get worse for the NFL, on September 17, Arizona Cardinals running back Jonathan Dwyer was arrested on charges of domestic assault against a 27-year-old female and an 18-month-old child. Needless to say, it is not a good time to be a running back in the NFL. These suspensions, especially in such quick succession, reflect extremely poorly on the league, and force multiple parties to have to make crucial decisions in order to maintain a positive public image. For example, the Ravens were forced to terminate the contract of their star running back due to the backlash that was felt after the video of Rice punching his fiancée twice in an elevator emerged. The Vikings will probably do anything to avoid further discipline against Peterson. Peterson, who finished just nine yards shy of the record for most rushing yards in a season in 2012, is synonymous with the Vikings brand, and because of that, the organization will most likely wait until the end of the trial process before making a final decision on Adrian Peterson. The Vikings had originally announced their support of Peterson, and he was even scheduled to play this coming weekend. It wasn’t until the team and the league began to lose sponsors that the decision was made to suspend Peterson. These incidents have also had an effect on athletes and celebrities who are not directly affiliated with the NFL. For example, athletes such as Paul George, a basketball player for the National Basketball Association’s Indiana Pacers, have been reprimanded for showing support for Rice and Peterson over social media. Even Rihanna wasn’t safe from the backlash of the Ray Rice domestic abuse case. Jay-Z’s song “Run this Town,” which features Rihanna, was supposed to be played at the beginning of Thursday Night Football broadcasts this season, with the first broadcast being the Baltimore Ravens vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game. Because of Rihanna’s past history with domestic abuse, CBS pulled the song from the September 11 broadcast due to Ray Rice’s affiliation with the Baltimore Ravens. Rihanna voiced her displeasure at the decision on her Twitter account, and as a result, CBS decided to sever ties with her, and will be eliminating the song from their broadcast completely. These past few weeks have not been easy for the NFL. Due to the poor judgment of a handful of individuals, teams are having to choose between disciplining some of their best players, or facing the backlash of the public. The Ravens are being criticized for supporting one of their best players until the evidence was completely stacked against him, while the Vikings are being accused of suspending Peterson only after Radisson Hotels decided to suspend its sponsorship of the team. When one player makes a poor decision, the league, their team, their sponsors, and even a celebrity such as Rihanna, has to pay the consequences for the player’s behavior. No organization wants to have their brand tarnished, especially by something as serious as domestic abuse. Decisions have to be made in order to rehabilitate the organization’s reputation – even if it means releasing their star running back. Edited by Katharina Elberti, Webmaster and Editor-in-Chief 2014-2015
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“Fancred is a sports-focused social network for fans to connect and share content and opinions about their favorite teams and sports. It’s a free app where you can post articles, gifs, photos, comments, and trash talk with other fans.” This excerpt, taken from the Fancred Community Leader Playbook, outlines the company’s goals and vision. The site was founded by Hossein Kash Razzaghi, a Mississippi State University graduate. Razzaghi moved north after graduation and discovered he no longer had a fan base to talk about his beloved Bulldog’s sports with. Together with a small team of co-workers, he launched the Fancred iPhone application in August 2012. Since then, the company has expanded to a website version. So the question is: how did they do it? How, in a digital world dominated by social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, did Fancred break through and receive over 551 ratings on iTunes, averaging 5/5 stars? Simple – they gave the people what they wanted: strictly sports. Fancred’s vision is “to be the single point of access to your life as a sports fan.” Their network allows sports fans to communicate, share, and experience sports with other die-hard fans without having to sift through friend’s newborn baby pictures on Facebook and “OMG I <3 Justin Bieber” tweets on Twitter. Here are some features that have made Fancred such a hit: Accountability – Fancred requires users to register through Facebook, thereby authenticating the user’s identity. This makes individuals accountable for the content that they post and the ways in which they interact with other users. Give Incentive – The “Fancred Score” is a genius tool that the site uses to measure how active users are. However, the score is not based on how many times a user posts; it is used to separate the true fans from the bandwagon fans. A complex algorithm that measures things including knowledge of sports, involvement in team communities (i.e. your presence in each and overall fandom, calculates the score. The Fancred Score tool is successful because it gives competitive people something to vie for, but also inevitably increases users’ presence in the site. Go Straight to the Source – College sports are a huge demographic when it comes to online communities. To help engage them, Fancred has Community Leaders at over 75 colleges across the nation, a number that is expanding every school semester. These Community Leaders are responsible for posting live updates of their school’s games, pictures, and engaging their school’s community in sports-related discussions. In turn, the community leaders receive real-world experience and school credits for an internship. Guerilla Marketing – Awareness. The Internet has grown to colossal size, making it harder for potential users to stumble upon sites. Guerilla Marketing tactics such as writing the site’s URL in giant letters across a classroom chalk board, posting cards all over campus, and, my personal favorite: eccentric displays of Fancred affection in the form of their mascots. Give Users a Goal – Unlike many other new sites that smother users with free shirts and logo-clad items, Fancred has made these items a prize. You cannot buy them; they have to be won. Fancred employees and community leaders hold “caption this picture” and “post the best X, Y, Z” competitions and offer Fancred shirts, stickers, and other coveted “cred-swag” as prizes. From its start as a mobile phone application to its expansion to a website format, Fancred is a company to be admired and studied for its clever growth tactics. Edited by Melanie Ford, Webmaster and Editor-in-Chief 2013-2014 |
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