THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SPORTS

The early days of 90s and 2000s was the era when sports across continents started gaining more popularity and started becoming a topic of discussion and with the rise of sports the fame of athletes uprooted. Those were the days where only fan followers could follow their favorite sports and players only through televisions, sports magazines, but the existence and growth of social media has changed the way people look at sports and athletes.

We can almost say that this generation of people grew along with social media as their main modes of entertainment and communication. Statistics show that more than 80% of sports fans monitor social media sites while they are watching the game on television and over 60% do when they are actually at the game.  Of course, the players are all in social media in a big way and they have created more buzz with their social media properties than through any other channels. 

The Indian premier league 2014 alone generated a staggering amount of 5 million tweets  which is almost twice the number of 2013 when the numbers 2.62 million and followers increased to a staggering number of 1.5 million these suggest how crazy the people are today about sports and these data is pertaining to just 1 sports india.

With growth of social media channels and access the fan followers are now easily keeping track of their favorite athletes and get a step close to them and also get equally close to sport on the other end Social media has also enabled lot of hidden talents make their mark in Sports and have a good life and now each and every individual talents performance being recognized and shared on social media.

The increase in social media usage by people will only make the sports grow bigger get better and the games being played fair with lot of flair and enthusiasm to increase the beauty of the game. 

Contributor- Shashi Kumar