Social Media and its Impact on NFL Player, Team Decisions
Social media has impacted the free agent process. Justin looks into its impact on decision-making in the NFL in his latest Monday NFL column.
Every fan wants their team to sign big-name free agents. The thought process is that top-tier talent improves the team, especially in positions of need, where a simple roster fix will “push” a roster into the playoffs or Super Bowl aspirations. What is forgotten by fanbases is their impact on a player’s decision themselves. Due to the cesspool of bots, fake accounts, and burners on social media, fanbases can overstay their “pull” on a player’s decision to go to a team. Free agency in any sport, but especially that of the NFL’s spectacle, is a process that should be a passive decision made by the player and team themselves, not of the millions that want to see what they want to see.
Some NFL players take to social media to land big free agents. Throughout the 2022 NFL offseason, Patriots pass rusher Matt Judon took to Twitter and tried to recruit big-name players such as D.K. Metcalf, Stephon Gilmore, and Josh Gordon. Not one of those players ended up on the Patriots. Social media advocacy has uncovered a new layer to the free-agent process—direct fan interaction and its impact on players.
Players need to make decisions in their best interest, not of fan pull, and deserve the right to keep free agency private to them. While there are not many players can do to stop fans from reaching out to them about signing with a particular team, staying off social media during the free-agent process may be in the best interest of all parties involved. Some fans may become adamant in their belief that a player will sign with a team and if that does not happen, they may become incensed at the team and player for not agreeing to terms. Again, fans want what they want, and they believe they have a right as a consumer to have a say in team operations, which should not be the case.
Team decisions should never act in fan interest. Yes, adding a player to a team may generate hype and attention, but when the decision of signing a player is to appeal to a fanbase, the process is flawed. Before the NFL was a billion-dollar enterprise, it was about football itself. With the NFL’s attention on generating revenue, most large-market NFL decisions are not about improving the football team but satisfying their fanbase. The NFL and its constituents act in consumer interest, deviating from a traditional business model.
The Los Angeles Rams aside, great teams do not actively try to fill their roster with big names but tangible fits from their roster from a football perspective. In some circumstances in the free-agent market, the NFL is not even about player/team fit but appeasing the consumer. Great products will eventually draw consumers in through football greatness; teams must act in their interest rather than fan interest. As said in the film Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come.” Teams must build winners, which will eventually attract free agent names, to create the best product available.
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