Tonight while watching the AFC Championship game, I witnessed one of the most brutal hits I had seen in professional football this year.
Willis McGahee of the Baltimore Ravens was laid out by Pittsburgh Steeler Ryan Clark.
After seeing several replays of the hit while McGahee laid nearly motionless, it wasn’t clear to what degree he had been injured.
Fortunately within an hour after the hit, the AP reported McGahee had “significant neck pain” but had movement in his arms and legs.
I happened to be on Twitter when the Clark McGahee hit occurred.
Within a minute or two of the hit I took this screen shot of the Twitter Search and Trending Topics page.
Trending Topics 9:08 PM CST
The Steelers and Troy Polamolu were both in Twitter’s Trending Topics at 9:08 PM CST.
Polamolu had made the trending topics list because moments before he has made a game winning interception and touchdown that sealed the Steelers Super Bowl berth.
I tweeted about the McGahee hit and then searched for Willis McGahee on Twitter where new Tweets began posting nearly every second.
Willis McGahee Twitter
After several minutes I went back to the Twitter Search page and refereshed my browser.
By 9:18 searches for Willis McGahee had become the fourth most searched for term in Twitter’s Trending Topics.
Total elapsed time to make Twitter’s Trending Topics list? 10 Minutes.
Trending Topics Willis McGahee 9:18 PM CST
An aside: Haven’t the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens also missed a golden opportunity to reach and connect with their fans further in real time via Twitter?
I searched for the NFL and Ravens and couldn’t seem to locate their Twitter accounts.
I was able to locate the Utah Jazz address but theirs was the only professional sports team I could find with a Twitter account.
Surely there are other professional sports teams with Twitter accounts.
Shouldn’t Professional sports leagues like the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) and each of their respective teams have a “Chief Twitter Officer” a person or department in charge of developing and executing a strategy for using Twitter to further reach and connect with their league’s fan base?
Maybe one day they will….
Search Marketing Communications 
You must be logged in to post a comment.