The NFL is sticking to its weapons about how its crew members use social media — specifically, by maintaining groups off of X competitor Bluesky.
This tidbit comes courtesy of the sports activities media website Terrible Asserting, which caught an trade on Patriots Unfiltered. In response to a fan suggestion that the crew broaden its social media footprint to Bluesky, Patriots VP of content material Fred Kirsch revealed that “proper now we’re not allowed to.”
Reddit sports activities mods, customers calling for a ban on X hyperlinks in posts
Kirsch defined that whereas the Patriots had briefly examined the waters on Bluesky, “the league requested us to take it down as a result of it’s not an permitted social media platform for the NFL but,” he mentioned.
Bluesky, now boasting over 28 million customers, has emerged as a number one different to X within the wake of Elon Musk’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s obvious shifts towards far-right politics. Sports activities groups are more and more exploring life past X, with Bundesliga golf equipment like FC St. Pauli taking the leap as early as November, following the U.S. presidential election.
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Extra lately, a number of main sports-focused subreddits have floated the concept of banning X hyperlinks solely, although a lot of their content material depends closely on posts from the platform. On the identical time, distinguished sports activities journalists and media personalities have began constructing energetic presences on Bluesky, making X’s position as a go-to hub for sports activities followers really feel more and more redundant.
As for the NFL’s presence on Bluesky? It’s principally nonexistent. The league maintains energetic partnerships with Meta and X, and regardless of the wave of sports activities followers and media personalities migrating to Bluesky, the NFL has but to comply with go well with. The choice appears to stem much less from ideological alignment with Musk or Zuckerberg and extra from the league’s enterprise pursuits and energetic model partnerships with each platforms.
An NFL spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to our request for remark.
That mentioned, a handful of NFL groups seem to have a foothold on Bluesky — form of. The Detroit Lions (53.8k followers on the time of publication), New York Giants (13.5k), Minnesota Vikings (22.7k), and Philadelphia Eagles (50.6k) all have accounts that look legit. However based mostly on Patriots VP Fred Kirsch’s latest feedback, these accounts are seemingly fan-run, as they’re unverified and unofficial.
