Kenneth Wisnefski, May 7, 2014
Yesterday, a live Twitter session that the National Football League hosted directly with their commissioner, Roger Goodell, certainly created a lot of interest. With the NFL draft only days away, the notion of stirring up some buzz likely motivated the NFL to “expose” Goodell to the millions of fans waiting with questions.
As one would expect, Goodell was barraged with an array of legitimate questions but also a large amount of complete nonsense. #AskCommish provided some extensive humor at the expense of Goodell, and likely set the path for other public figures to avoid such an open conversation with the masses.
(An example of the quick wit of Goodell)
I think these sort of “good” ideas are going to start to fade out as someone with the stature of Goodell may not want to be subject to the public bashing that can come with an open forum. To his credit, Goodell came off as quick witted and funny in many of his responses. I am sure he thought he was going to answer real hardcore football questions, but he was a good sport and did a nice job dealing with some of the nonsense that was thrown his way. The NFL, while a big business, is still entertainment. And this format was entertaining for the fans, but I’m not so sure it was the type of entertainment Goodell was looking for. As we saw a few weeks back in the response to the NYPD’s desire to upgrade their social media engagement, sometimes the best ideas can go terribly wrong.
My favorite Tweet from yesterday is below:
