I didn't know this was a thing, but on June 12, the NBA will televise its second annual Social Media Awards:
NBA TV will televise the second annual NBA Social Media Awards presented by SAP — celebrating NBA players, teams and fans for their social engagement throughout the 2012-13 NBA regular season — on Wednesday, June 12, at 8 p.m. (ET). Chris Webber (@realchriswebber) will host the show along with contributions and appearances from various players and celebrities. The show will recognize some of the best moments from the 2012-13 NBA regular season, which resonated with fans and generated the most social engagement.
Last year's winners included Landry Fields, who won the Snapshot Award for tweeting a picture of the couch Jeremy Lin slept on before Linsanity was a thing. The Lakers were the MVT, while the FanNation award went to the Clippers.
This year's nominees include Kobe Bryant (Snapshot) for the picture he tweeted of him "fighting" with Dwight Howard (automatic winner), Phil Jackson (The 140 Award) for his very first tweet ever (you know, the one that was not in English…or any other language), and LeBron James (Social MVP).
The NBA is by far and away the league that embraces social media the most and does the most with it. It is nice to see the league encouraging fans, teams, and athletes to engage in a positive way, rather than some of the athlete drama we're used to seeing on Twitter (with the exception of this tweet, which gets an automatic pass). While I may not be tuning in to the awards, I will use the nominees as positive examples of why social media can be such a great thing.
