Twitter and sports are like PB&J. Sports is a religion 
and Twitter delivers. Organizations, athletes, sports-writers, celebrities, are all hopping the Twitter band-wagon to communicate with the fans. The fans/followers like the instant updates and insider info and get to know the other party better through these personalized Twitter accounts.
Central Ohio is crazy for its sports - no surprise there! The Ohio State buckeyes football dominates TV and other local media. Baseball and basketball follows and hockey and soccer are relatively new, but have a good fan base. Most fans are now Web2.0 savvy and follow blogs, Facebook, and twitter updates along with the TV broadcasts and box-scores. It is now essential to have a Web2.0 component to sports to connect with the fanbase.
These here are my top-five Twitter accounts for (kinda) local sports. At the end, I have also added a couple more that are worth following. I have based these rankings on updates (the right amount), fan interactivity, goodies, and the general 'Twitter-Feel' instead of the old one-point-o (1.0) media.
Top Five - Central Ohio Sports| Account | What | My Comments |
# 5
Brutus_Buckeye
| The official mascot of Ohio State athletics brings you the official news feed from Buckeye athletics
OhioStateBuckeyes.com
| All (or most) Ohio State sports covered by this official OSU sports twitter account. Not as interactive and up-to-date since it has to stay 'official'. |
# 4
CLBClippers
| The Official Twitter of the 2010 & 2011 Triple-A National Champion Baseball Affiliate of the Cleveland Indians
Clippersbaseball.com
| Too many 'buy this' tweets but overall well written and good interactivity and promo information.
|
# 3
PDcavsinsider
| (Though the Cavaliers are not a local team, there is a large fan-base in C. Ohio)
Updates from the Plain Dealer's Cavs beat writers Tom Reed and Mary Schmitt Boyer.
Cleveland.com/cavs/
| In-game updates, additional insights, and links to articles from Plain Dealer, make it a good collection of Tweets. |
# 2
BlueJacketsNHL
| Official Twitter Site of the Columbus Blue Jackets Hockey Club
Bluejackets.nhl.com | Great interactivity with the fans, players updates, retweets, making it great for Jackets fans, though the team could use a boost.
|
# 1
ColumbusCrew | Official Twitter feed of Ohio's Major League Soccer club, three-time Supporters' Shield winners and 2008 MLS Cup Champion.
www.TheCrew.com
| The BEST local sports Twitter page with great fan interactivity, updates, trivia, goodies, and in-game updates.
|
Honorary Mentions: CavsWitness (a very interactive site on mostly Cleveland sports, but some C-Ohio as well), Buckeye_Nation (all Ohio State University sports, but mostly football)
Technologies discussed: Twitter, Short Messaging Service, SMS
Contact me:
Sujan ManandharTechnology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University
Follow me on Twitter -
aarkae
