Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a three-part series spotlighting the impact of social networking and new media on college athletics, particularly basketball. Yesterday’s emphasis was on current players, and today, Taylor Doherty writes about Kyrie Irving, who set new standards for the use of new media in recruiting. Tomorrow, The Chronicle looks into the Duke basketball program’s response to a changing landscape.
Before Kyrie Irving even appeared on ESPNU to announce that he would be attending Duke, he had thousands of fans following his every word on Twitter and attending his regular online news conferences on UStream. Irving was not the first basketball player to be the object of an intense recruiting battle, but the way he handled the situation represents a larger social media phenomenon.
Together, Twitter and UStream lessened Irving’s dependence on traditional media to interact with fans and fuel speculation about his college choice in order to generate attention. On Twitter, the No. 5 prospect in the Class of 2010 according to Scout.com chronicled his every move on the recruiting trail, and on UStream onlookers could ask questions in the chat room he hosted.
“I think Kyrie has been pretty revolutionary in this whole process,” recruiting analyst Adam Zagoria said in a phone interview last week. “Twitter is a legitimate source to break news, whether you are Shaquille O’Neal or Kyrie Irving. You can sort of bypass the mainstream media and break news on Twitter…. Those UStream interviews [were also] pretty revolutionary for a recruit, to invite people into your living room and answer questions.”
Beyond using social media as a means to generate hype, Irving’s online presence influenced the way the media covered his recruitment because it gave him the opportunity to speak directly to fans without any sort of middleman. When Zagoria somewhat controversially cited anonymous sources and broke the story that the guard would be attending Duke two days before Irving was set to announce his decision, the prospect was able to bite back: “I don’t know what’s going on with all these supposed sources but I have not commited [sic] to Duke,” Irving tweeted.
Ultimately, Irving’s tweet turned out to be a fabrication of the truth—Seth Davis, a CBS college basketball analyst and former Chronicle sports columnist, also had sources that confirmed Irving had in fact secretly committed four weeks earlier. Still, Irving’s denial certainly served the purpose of keeping fans on the edge of their seats. When Irving suggested that a number of fans might be surprised by his decision, he made his eventual commitment to Duke’s program appear uncertain. After Irving formally chose Duke, he at least admitted that keeping the buzz alive was a part of his rational. “I had to keep the suspense,” Irving said on ESPNU when asked about why he denied the reports.
Beyond Twitter, Irving managed his public persona with the help of UStream. After posting a link on his Twitter feed, the guard would sit in front of his laptop’s webcam and answer questions that visitors posted in the chat room.
Of course, answering questions in a rapid-fire and informal manner can result in making mistakes that generate unwanted speculation on the Internet. On Sept. 30, weeks before even Zagoria had announced that Irving had committed to Duke, the guard dismissed rumors that he was set to make his announcement either that night or the next day. But while the UStream broadcast was an attempt to put the rumors to rest, it simply fed the fire. Irving’s good friend—whom he called Jerry—suddenly got confused during the broadcast and said that he’d be with Irving at Duke for Countdown to Craziness even though the guard was scheduled to visit Kentucky that night. Irving fell back in the chair and looked at his friend in disbelief.
“What are you talking about?” Irving said as he got ready to end the live stream. “Oh my gosh, dog. You’re out, we’re out dog.”
Irving followed up on his Twitter later that night to confirm that the comment was a mistake and that he would be attending Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness, but not before adding to already existing rumors. On the video feed, the recruit’s visible discomfort seemed to suggest that he was nervous about giving up too much information or saying the wrong thing. Irving wanted to give the public some access, but it seemed clear that not everything was supposed to be for fans’ ears.
Paul Levinson, a professor at Fordham and the author of “New New Media”, explains that maintaining this balance—in effect having both a private and a public persona—is difficult business. “There was a sociologist named [Erving] Goffman, [and] he used to write about people’s front region, or their public persona, and their back region, or how they’re different when they’re with their friends and family,” Levinson said. “This applies to athletes. They need to be aware of how much of their back region they want to make available to the public.”
However, it is access to what Levinson calls the back region that keeps fans interested. In a sense, then, Irving’s eventual obligation to actually commit to just one college took away part of his ability to continue to generate attention. Without the mystery, there is now no need for fans to analyze and discuss his every move. Before Irving even committed, his Twitter reflected this reality: “I wonder if I would have all these followers if I wad [sic] already committed?? Lol idk,” Irving wrote. It was the secret, after all, that helped Irving develop such a presence on the internet. Since his commitment Oct. 22, Irving has accumulated 197 new followers, but the rate of growth seems to have slowed down.
Still, Irving’s example has already had an influence on other players and is likely to continue to do so in the near future. Though current Duke junior Nolan Smith has been on Twitter since June 2, his growing presence on UStream was at least partially the result of seeing how well it worked for Irving.
“I think I’ve seen a couple of people on there, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I’ve seen Kyrie Irving on UStream talking to a bunch of Kentucky fans about stuff,” Smith said. “I went on there, and they have a lot of viewers. I have like 300 viewers; it’s just something fun.”
Kyrie Irving did not immediately respond to a tweet requesting an interview. With social media at his disposal, though, he may be in no rush to.
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