Gabby Thomas is as smart as she is fast, a three-time Olympic champion sprinter who graduated from Harvard and then went on to get a master’s in epidemiology. Yet over the weekend, racist trolls flooded her X page with nasty comments belittling her intelligence and achievements.
This is what X has become: a toxic cesspool whose owner embraces, encourages and amplifies the very worst of humanity.
And it ought to be a blaring warning to the NFL, NBA, college athletics and all the other folks in the sports world who are ignoring the alternative to it.
Ordinarily hyper-sensitive to their images and petrified of anything that could threaten them, most teams, leagues and athletes are blithely continuing to use X despite the looming PR nightmare. They don’t seem to realize that as Elon Musk does more and more awful things, and X degrades further and further, it’s their follow counts and reputations that will take the hit.
I doubt the NBA wants porn ads adjacent to its account. Or members of the Proud Boys liking its highlight videos. I can only imagine the heartburn NFL commissioner Roger Goodell felt when he saw Musk make Nazi jokes on the same platform where the league has its largest social media presence and then, two days before Holocaust Remembrance Day, suggest the German people should just “move beyond” their “past guilt” over the atrocities of World War II.
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But this is what they are choosing. And given the skyrocketing number of people who are opting for Bluesky, it is most definitely a choice.
Bluesky defangs trolls. Musk feeds, waters and walks them twice a day.
“The value of Bluesky to athletes is that, because it’s moderated, players can engage and talk to their fans, without being overwhelmed by idiots,” Mark Cuban, the former owner of the Dallas Mavericks who has become a Bluesky enthusiast, said in an email.
“Bluesky with moderation allows leagues, brands, players, celebs to engage with fans,” Cuban wrote. “I see it every day. The quality ratio is about 90 pct on Bluesky vs about 50 pct or less on X.”
Yet the NWSL is the only one of the major professional sports leagues to be actively using Bluesky. According to Sportico, the NFL and NBA only operate on platforms where they have agreements, which often include financial incentives, and they do not have ones with Bluesky. The WNBA and NBA at least allow their teams to have Bluesky accounts; the NFL does not.
It’s hard to abandon social media sites where you’ve built up significant followings, as the leagues, their broadcasters and many athletes have on X. The NBA has almost 48 million followers on X; the NFL has 37 million. LeBron James has almost 53 million followers on X; Patrick Mahomes has 2.6 million.
It’s also hard to abandon it when X continues to be where people make news. (Full disclosure: I still have an X account solely for that reason, using the alert function so I can see what people I cover post.)
But as more and more people move to Bluesky, including sports influencers like Pat McAfee, Mina Kimes, Ian Rapoport and Monica McNutt, there’s an opening for the leagues to replicate that fan base.
Bluesky reached 20 million users in mid-November, tripling its userbase in just three months. It was nearing 30 million by Monday afternoon.
“I think the only missing pieces for Bluesky are real-time news and scores, which is rapidly being added, and a few verticals,” Cuban said. “I think that changes over time.”
The beauty of Twitter was as a second-screen community, allowing fans to interact, get additional information and, eventually, get replays. It was like watching the game from a broadcast control room with all of your closest friends. That was missing from Bluesky initially, but it’s gaining steam.
When the refs robbed the Buffalo Bills of a first down on Josh Allen’s QB sneak early in the fourth quarter, the reaction on Bluesky was reminiscent of Twitter in the old days.
“As it grows, it will only be increasingly valuable,” Cuban said. “The social media space has bifurcated into unmoderated vs. moderated. It sure looks like most people prefer moderation and a less hateful site.”
And as Musk and X increasingly lean into their worst tendencies, that will only pick up pace.
The Guardian and Le Monde, France’s paper of record, have already stopped posting on X. After Musk’s hand gesture that sure looked like a Nazi salute at last week’s inauguration, moderators of the NFL, NBA, Formula 1 and soccer communities on Reddit banned links to X.
“We have reached this decision after taking recent events and strong sentiment from our community into account,’ the /r/NBA moderators said in a post. ‘While we try our best to stay neutral and apolitical, we do not believe taking a stance against Nazi symbolism is or should be a political issue. Hate speech and the promotion of it has never been tolerated in our community.”
Social media is supposed to be fun and informative, a way to reach people you otherwise wouldn’t. When it becomes a haven for white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others who don’t value democracy or diversity, it’s time to leave.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
