Mexican Football Team Replaces Player Names With Twitter Handles

Niall Harbison Social Media October 31, 2011

Mexican Primera Division side Jaguares have taken things to the next level in terms of attracting more followers to their club Twitter account by pasting their official handle on their club shirts. Not only is the club Twitter account on the front of the shirt but each individual player has their personal profiles instead of their names on the back of their shirts. We’ve seen plenty of players embracing social media and Twitter in particular but the teams they play for have not always been behind them with some banning it outright. In one way it’s great to see a team pushing their own players accounts in this way but you do wonder if it’s a marketing stunt to get them mainstream media attention or a genuine attempt to help players connect with their fans.

Walking Billboards?

This is not actually the first time that a football club have used their shirts to promote Twitter because earlier this year Spanish side Valencia came up with the idea. They didn’t have a shirt sponsor and for a big game with Barcelona decided to make the most of the spare real estate that they had available to them. It will be interesting to see if more and more teams do this or if we could even get to a stage where brands paid to have their Twitter name on a sports team shirt rather than their simple brand name or website. For what it is worth I think this is a bit of a gimmick and that it probably has limited appeal in the long run. It’s similar to slapping your Twitter logo and Facebook logo on a TV advert saying “follow us” and I’d be surprised if it converts that well. Having said that it is great to see clubs embracing social media and hoping to find new ways of connecting players with fans

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