NASCAR And Social Media: Best Friends Or Worst Enemies
10/04/13
Kevin Abraham
In the last couple of weeks, social media has been
in the forefront of NASCAR. The first
incident on social media was when NAPA Auto Parts announced on Facebook that
they were leaving Michael Waltrip Racing at the end of the year. This caused uproar on Twitter and Facebook,
with many fans saying they will boycott NAPA due to their decision. Keep in mind NAPA released a Facebook
statement a week or so earlier saying they were reviewing sponsoring the No. 56
car, and at that time many fans threatened to stop purchasing products from
NAPA if they continued supporting NAPA. NAPA was not the only sponsor to get heat on
social media due to the Richmond incident.
5-Hour Energy and Aarons were both sent messages by outraged fans to
pull their support from Michael Waltrip Racing as well. Aarons expressed support for the team, and
after reviewing their position, 5-Hour Energy decided they would still sponsor
Clint Bowyer at MWR. This is not the
only firestorm on Twitter recently.
The latest social media occurred Tuesday, when
NASCAR fined Nelson Piquet Jr. for his homophobic slur towards fellow driver Parker
Kligerman.
Piquet Jr. was fined $10,000, placed on NASCAR probation indefinitely,
and ordered to attend sensitivity training.
This in itself is another inconsistent ruling from NASCAR. Earlier this year, Nationwide
series driver Jeremy Clements was suspended indefinitely and ordered to sensitivity
training after making a racial slur that was overheard in the garage in
Daytona. Clements ended up missing two
races. Which punishment was worse? Clements was worse, because Clements was the
owner/driver of his team. He had to
quickly find another driver to fill his car for those races. This cost Clements
money to pay the substitute, and took money away from the funding of his
team. The team does not have a major
sponsor to cover the costs of racing, unlike Piquet. The second reason is that Clements
does not have a high profile as Piquet Jr., who drives for Turner-Scott Racing,
one of the top Nationwide series teams in the garage
today. If another driver at Clements level would have made the comment Piquet made,
do you think they would have gotten away with probation and a fine? NO!
This is another example of the inconsistencies of NASCAR.
As I was seeing this news be announced on Twitter, I
saw the following comments posted on Twitter by NASCAR driver Michael McDowell:
<<SMH
now. The media and fans want full authentic access but
drivers will shut all social media off due to fear of what someone can twist up.>>
McDowell then tweeted:
<<Then we can all
go back to being robots to accommodate fans and sponsors. Not agreeing with
actions but lets stop the non-sense.>>
These comments made by McDowell got me thinking
about the involvement of professional athletes on social media. Here is what I
came up with after much thought. Whether
what Piquet posted online was right or wrong, there is no reason to crucify
someone online for posting a comment online that they do not have the full
context of. Did this comment offend the
person it was targeted at? I doubt it
did, because it was someone else who took offense to it. I know people can get
so ‘politically correct’ in this day and age.
I do not agree with what Piquet tweeted, but if we are honest with
ourselves, how often do we do the same thing? It might not be the same word that was said,
but most everyone has said something that was not politically correct or
offensive at one time or another. We as
NASCAR fans want our drivers to be themselves, and share and interact with us
on social media. The fine line is that
drivers see the incident that happened to Piquet, along with the one that
happened with Kasey Kahne a couple of years ago when he made his tweet about
breastfeeding, and received a large public out lash for his comments. These
reactions are going to drive the drivers away from Twitter, Facebook, and all
social media and become the ‘robots’ McDowell mentioned in his tweet.
To give another perspective on this subject, I am
going to end this column with the following comment made on Twitter by Jimmie
Johnson when he was asked about getting Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Twitter:
<<He doesn’t want
to deal with the haters... I can’t say I blame him.>>
I wonder how many other drivers/sponsors are going
to become tired of all the ‘haters’ online and deactivate their social media
accounts? Will there be a mass exodus
soon? Or will they quit social media little by little? Do you think Michael McDowell is correct in
saying that all of this is going to turn drivers into more of a robot in their
interactions with their fans? Do you
think that this will not affect drivers interacting with their fans in any
way? Please share YOUR thoughts below.
I personally am on Twitter @kevdogg329