Marc J. Spears of Yahoo reports: NBA commissioner David Stern told Yahoo! Sports on Thursday the league will soon follow the NFL in announcing Twitter guidelines and other social media restrictions for its players and coaches. “Obviously, there is a happy medium between tweeting before the game and tweeting from our bench during the game,” Stern said by phone. “You want to make sure that pop culture doesn’t intrude on what brought us here, which is the game, and that we show the right respect for the game.” The NFL announced its own guidelines on Monday by restricting players, coaches and football operations personnel – or anyone representing them – from using social media networks like Twitter and Facebook from 90 minutes before kickoff to the end of traditional media interviews after games. NFL game officials are banned from using social media at all times. Stern described the NBA’s guidelines as “nothing too serious.”
InsideHoops.com editor says: I understand it if the league decides that players aren’t to post on the Internet for a period of time before a game starts through after a game has ended. These guys are getting paid crazy money to focus 100 percent on winning, and entertaining the fans who are paying to be in the arena. Just like companies can set Internet guidelines on what employees are allowed to do in an office, I understand the league doing that around game-time.
