Sports has been around for a long time and can be seen everywhere. Thanks to improvement of technology the media has a big influence on how someone watches sports and the participation in activities. Games are played at parks, rec centers, and different facilities. When it comes to watching and keeping up with sports it can be watched anytime of the day and almost anywhere. With how technology is sports can watched online on a computer, IPad, and a smartphone where before sports was just watched on TV and read about in newspapers and magazines. Even if someone is not a big fan of sports it's not hard for them to keep up with what's going thanks to social media. The way mass media is today, sports news and information can be communicated to millions of people within a matter of seconds. Not only does the media effect how someone can watch sports, it also helps influence the way someone looks at a sport and the expectations on athletes. Depending on what an athlete post on social media their image can go from good too bad in seconds. .
Social Media Positives.
From Twitter to Facebook and now Instagram, social media is continuingly on the rise. Combine these social networks with sports and fans have unlimited access to their favorite teams and favorite athletes (Bioacca, 2015, p.159). For fans this is great, not only can they keep up with their favorite athlete, they can interact with them as well. Some of the most famous athletes have a social media page with over 1 million followers. These include athletes such as Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Floyd Mayweather, and Shaquille O'Neal. Most professional teams like Los Angeles Lakers and New York Yankees have their own team social media account that is ran by a full time media member (Beaubien, 2011, p. 11). Universities also have social media pages for fans of college sports to keep them updated and also help with recruiting athletes to their school.