CorpComms Magazine

There are rules and then there are statements of the 'bleeding obvious'. America's National Football League (NFL) has just announced that players can use social media networks this season. Indeed, they can update their progress up to 90 minutes before kick off but once they're on the field, the NFL rules that players must not update their status.

Now I'm not a sporting person, but even I (with my limited knowledge of drop kicks and gunslingers) figure that, in the midst of the game with passions running high, few players are going to want to whip out their iPhones to update their status.

I can just see it now: 'Game going well. Waiting for pass to make winning touchdown.' Update: 'Missed pass as putting iPhone away'. Update: 'Missed last pass as tweeted to Floyd to send ball over, but he didn't get to Blackberry in time'.

The League has ruled that no updates will be permitted during games by either the player or anybody representing him on his personal Twitter, Facebook or other social media account.

Apparently, the NFL has always barred play-by-play descriptions of games in progress. That sounds like my kind of sports reporting: 'Game kicked off. It ended. The score was 2,1'.

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