Today I came across two articles on professional sports and Twitter (apparently, the media’s insatiable appetite for Twitter stories never dies).  The New York Times blogged that tennis star Andy Roddick is unhappy with rules banning players’ use of Twitter during the U.S. Open, which started in New York City this week. The rules state that tweeting is not allowed on the court during matches, and players are warned about using Twitter off the court to ward against sending information that could be helpful to gamblers.  

Among other outlets, InformationWeek also reported that on Monday, the NFL released new rules that prohibit players, coaches and other personnel from the posting of info on social Web sites from 90 minutes before a game until after media interviews following the game.

Many companies have issued employee social media guidelines - which are called “guidelines” for a reason.  Guidelines today are important tools for protecting the integrity of a brand, but it is unrealistic to enforce stringent rules. Roddick is certainly on to something when he grumbles that “you would seriously have to be a moron to send ‘inside info’ through a tweet.” Despite the pervasiveness of Twitter and social networks, many companies still don’t completely grasp that enforcing strict rules around social networks goes against the whole grain of the medium in the first place. Educating employees of a company or organization on the implications of certain behavior on social networking channels is important, but there’s a fine line between guidance and strict rules around a medium that was built upon free form communication.

Regarding the NFL rules, the San Francisco Chronicle also points out that these rules will be hard to enforce. ”… it comes in an era when the term “citizen journalists” means anyone with a blog, Twitter or Facebook account and a smart phone can send game updates from anywhere at any time.”

Do you think the NFL and U.S. Open went too far?