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How Athletes Use Social Media to Speak Out

One thing that has potential for great impacts on society and organizations in many different ways is athlete-driven media. We’ve seen recently that athletes are feeling more empowered to speak out about injustices and to speak out about things and causes that are really important to them. One great example of this in recent times is Olympic champion Simone Biles. Most people know her. She won five Olympic medals in the Rio Games, and four of them were gold.

USA Gymnastics, the national governing body of her sport, has recently had a lot of problems and turmoil because of a sexual abuse scandal with a team doctor. USA Gymnastics then hired a new CEO named Mary Bono, who was formerly a politician in California. This was viewed as somewhat of a curious choice. When the decision was made, Simone Biles actually took to social media and retweeted something that the new CEO, Mary Bono, had tweeted. Basically, she had used a black marker to black out the Nike symbol on her shoes when she was going to play golf. This was in response to Nike and their Colin Kaepernick ad.

Another part of this was that USA Gymnastics had lost quite a few of their sponsors as a result of the sexual abuse scandal. One of those was their apparel sponsor, which used to be Under Armor. Now, they don’t have one.

So, Biles retweeted in explanation that she thought the group needed a smarter CEO, particularly one who wouldn’t insult a popular apparel company when they were still in need of an apparel sponsor. It was a really interesting example of a sports star choosing to speak out.

In the past, because of the power structures, we never would have had athletes speaking out in this way. But now, the athlete-driven media really helps to give the athletes a public voice and a platform that others can get behind. Simone’s tweet was retweeted, talked about, and written about in several major news outlets. As it turned out, the new CEO ended up resigning only five days after getting the job, and Simone Biles choosing to be vocal had a major impact on that.

You can learn more about how athletes are able to use their platforms and social media to affect change, as well as many other concepts regarding sports management and global sports marketing, with online sports management education. This form of sports management education allows you to learn about these concepts and access these lessons without having to spend as much money or physically going to class.

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