sport

The news that footballer Marvin Sordell has sought treatment for Twitter addiction has kickstarted a new debate about sport and social media.

Plenty of ink has been spilled, with The Guardian’s Barney Ronay asking why 140-characters holds such a fatal attraction.

One thing is certain: it’s a mass affliction. In a minority of cases, such as Marvin Sordell’s, additional factors are likely to be in play, separating the “normal” obsession the rest of us are avidly and cheerfully pursuing.

As you know, here at Chinwag, we love a good infographic. And we've all noticed how social media - particularly Twitter - is changing the way we watch, engage and interact with sports.

Euro 2012 set a new Twitter record, with 15,358 tweets per second during the Spain vs Italy final, as we know, Spain won - but it appears that they also won in terms of tweetage (that's a word in the Chinwag dictionary), as shown by the below infographic put together by sports website, thescore.com with Twitter data from Sysomos.

After the success of our first Social Media Week brainstorm, the second, with a consumer focus, took place last Wednesday 7th December at Ketchum PR's offices in Shoreditch.

The aim was to explore how social media is impacting our day-to-day lives from the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the music we listen to, the games we play, the sport we do and the way our families interact online.

After last week's successful Social Media Week London brainstorm - we're delighted to announce a SMWLDN Brainstorm Round 2 in preparation for next February's SMWLDN on Wed 7th Dec from 6pm - 8pm in Shoreditch or TechCity, if you're startup-minded (RSVP).

This time, the aim is to focus on how social media is affecting and impacting our day-to-day lives from the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the music we listen to, the games we play, the sport (some of us, ehem) do and our families.

Social Media Week London generated so much coverage that it’s taken us a little while to pull together all the information. This review brings together the video, reportage and tweets from Sport and Social Media, hosted by:

• Sophie Brendel, BBC’s Head of Digital Engagement (@sophiebr)
• Maz Nadjm, Ogilvy’s Head of Social Media (@mazi)
• and Dan McLaren, Adidas Social Media Lead at Carat (@danielmclaren)

The event looked at how the sports industry and the BBC are bringing social media centre stage, and featured major speakers from across the world of sport and broadcasting.

Four industry showcases were presented (Football, The Ashes, Rugby and BBC & London 2012), showcasing how sports organisations are using social media: