Social media and sports officials are increasingly colliding, creating new risks that officials at every level must understand and manage carefully. As officials, social media is great for keeping track of the comings and goings of family and friends. But used improperly, it can be our worst enemy.
A high-profile call or no-call in an NFL or NBA playoff game may send fans of the team believed to be on the “wrong side of the call” into a frenzy, accusing the officials on social media platforms of unethical behavior, or worse. But while a referee or umpire’s call at the highest levels of sport are facing constant social media criticism and scrutiny, public relations and social media experts, along with leading conference officials, say a potentially more dangerous situation is playing out at lower levels of sports every day.
This is because individual officials and many high school officiating associations and conferences do not have in place specific, clear-cut guidelines that need to be followed when it comes to interacting with people on social media. Then, there are also members of the traditional media who may have legitimate questions about a call or a rule. Or, as sometimes happens, the reporter decides to take the role of a fan, and their questioning may become more aggressive and critical than the official may have expected.
While professional and major college sports have seemingly abundant resources to monitor social media platforms and react to negative posts, that’s not the case at lower levels of sports and officials who work those games need to be aware of the threat they could be facing.
“The explosion of social media means that any joker with an opinion and an internet connection can stir up all types of angry sentiment online,” said Evan Nierman, founder and CEO of Red Banyan, a nationally recognized public relations and media firm that specializes in crisis management challenges.
“Unfortunately, a byproduct of living in the internet age means people default to outrage and love to apply cancel culture tactics, including toward referees in youth sports,” said Nierman, who is the author of two best-selling books on crisis management, the most recent called The Cancel Culture Curse, From Rage to Redemption in a World Gone Mad.
“It can be challenging,” Nierman added, “because the attacks can be deeply personal, and it is not unusual to learn of threats that include physical harm or violence.”
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Nierman said in today’s fast-moving social media environment and rapid-fire news cycle, where stories seem to come and go in almost an instant, in most cases it is best for sports officials to ignore the people who are doing the trolling and move on. In a day or two is another game and another moment and what happened earlier in the week is likely to be forgotten. If you had a tough game, it’s best not to spend several hours on social media after the game watching ill-informed fans critique your performance and question your integrity.
“Officials need to consider a series of factors whether or not they are going to act regarding online criticism. If there is an explicit threat made to them or their loved ones, it may in fact be appropriate to contact law enforcement,” Nierman said. “It is a good precautionary measure, especially if there is something specific in terms of a threat directed toward you. Better to act on the side of caution, rather than blowing it off. But for the most part, there is very little value in engaging with critics online over calls that were made in the past. This should fall to the league or individual teams if they want to engage. But it is not advisable to get involved in spats online. Hardcore fans are not going to be convinced by a referee making their case on X. They will not be convinced.”
But there are exceptions. NASO’s Board of Directors adopted social media guidelines for use by officials and organizations:
• Consider social media communications as public at all times — even if created with private intentions. If you are going to use social media in any form, consider your communication may be read by anyone at any time.
• You represent the officiating industry, your associations, your assigners and your partners. Act accordingly.
• Promote officiating in a positive light and with a general feeling of pride and professionalism. You are an ambassador for officiating.
• You have unique access to information. The same ethical restrictions that apply to any form of public speech also apply to social media. It is inappropriate to communicate specifics about your assignments, other officials, conferences/schools, coaches, players or any related personnel.
• Do not engage in specific play and/or ruling evaluation/commentary, whether it be of a game you worked, one that you witnessed or in general about the impact of officials in any sporting event.
• Communications among officials for learning purposes should be done privately and not through the use of social media. Be mindful that email and other forms of direct communication can be made public.
• Be very sparing in the sharing of your personal information, including photos. Adjust security settings accordingly. Report fake profiles or posts to the appropriate authorities/governing bodies in a timely fashion.
Sadly, there have been some high-profile situations where officials have not followed these recommendations and, as a result, their careers have been damaged.
In August 2023, veteran NBA referee Eric Lewis, 53, retired after a 19-year career. Lewis had been selected to the NBA Finals four times, had officiated nearly 1,100 regular-season games and 83 playoff games. The league opened an investigation in May 2023 when messages on an X account defended Lewis and other officials when they were attacked on social media. The league confirmed it was investigating Lewis and his potential use of a burner account on the social media platform. A person claiming to be Lewis’ brother claimed to be operating the account.
NBA regulations prohibit referees from commenting on officiating-related matters without approval from league officials. At the time of his retirement from the NBA, Lewis had just been hired by the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) as the league’s new coordinator of men’s basketball officials. Lewis returned to the court for the 2024-25 season, officiating NCAA men’s basketball in the ACC and other NCAA Division I conferences.
College supervisors and local conference commissioners and supervisors, some of whom schedule thousands of games each year, say their message to independent contractor officials is clear.
“We ask our officials to stay off social media, not to use it. I get it, if they use social media for their families and to exchange pictures and never use social media to convey anything that pertains to your job, in our case, being a football official,” said former NFL referee Bill Carollo, now coordinator of officials for the Collegiate Officiating Consortium (COC).
“A good suggestion is to not look at social media after a game that maybe contained some controversy. It will only get into your head and having your personal information out there, it can become a problem. Focus on your next game.”
But as a veteran official and coordinator with 50 years of experience, Carollo said he has seen a substantial change in fans’ behavior, and not for the better, and it is not likely to improve.
“They can be pretty vicious,” Carollo said. “A lot of people who criticize fans are gamblers, or fanatic fans who only care about their teams.”
“President Theodore Roosevelt wrote about the ‘Man in the Arena.’ They are the people doing the job, the coaches, the players, the officials. These people
criticize the coaches, they criticize referees. Those folks can’t play, they can’t coach and they can’t officiate. People on social media think it’s their job, but it’s not their job. They lack integrity and they hide behind a platform. They won’t say anything to a person’s face.
“I tell the officials, ‘Don’t post. Never do it. Never post anything if you are an official. You’re not going to win, so why lower yourself in that battle? You and the conferences now the facts, if you made a mistake, we know it and we fix it.’”
Carollo says the conferences with which he works, which include the Big Ten, has a team of social media experts who monitor what’s up on the various platforms, looking for posts that may be potentially troublesome.
“I am not on any social media platforms — never,” Carollo said. “I don’t engage. There’s nothing positive for me to post about football or politics, nothing. It’s divisive. People on social media are not going to compliment you. You may have had a great game, and if you didn’t, we’ll work to fix the issue and polish things up, so you do a better job the next
time. Every conference has a social media staff.
“If I do comment on social media, I do it through the league. Occasionally I will discuss specific rules on social media, but not if it’s a judgment call. We’ve had death threats against our officials. I tell the officials, ‘Ignore it. If it gets worse, we’ll report it to the
authorities.’ I’ve gotten them. We’ll get the FBI and other local authorities to investigate, and we have done that before.”
Carollo’s advice about not using social media is being heeded by officiating organizations that schedule high school and recreational sports. IAABO Board 12 in suburban Maryland outside of Washington, D.C., has more than 360 active officials and its commissioner is responsible for assigning more than 25,000 games every year. Basketball is nearly a year-round sport in the D.C. area and almost every day somewhere in the region there is a game being officiated by Board 12 referees.
“We do not engage in social media or talk to the media,” IAABO Board 12 Commissioner Steve Janoskie said. “Complaints would come to me, and I would deal with the coaches. The media hasn’t come to me one time this year. I get plays from coaches, and they’ll ask, ‘What’s the difference at this end of the court, compared to the other end of the court?'”
But as a veteran official of nearly 40 years, Janoskie said he has seen a change in the way fans approach games, with the advent of social media and its expansion.
“It’s not only social media, but it’s a lot of the announcers on television doing college games. They don’t know the rules. They argue about rules they don’t know about. People just don’t know the rules,” Janoskie said. “The people that post, they feed off of each other half of the time. It’s a way to hide behind your alias and talk about whomever you want. It’s the world we live in right now, I guess.”
While in most cases it is recommended officials and officials associations do not engage in battles with trolls on social media, occasionally there are exceptions.
In January 2023, after a contentious game in Iowa between Iowa City and Fairfield high schools, a scuffle broke out between players on both teams. Late in the game, Iowa City coach Brennan Swayzer was issued a second technical foul and ejected. Once order was restored, both teams left the court to cool down and a few minutes later, the coaches from City elected not to return to the court and forfeited the game because they said conditions were unsafe. Police escorted the team to the bus and provided an escort along part of the trip home.
The next day, Iowa City and the Iowa Community School District sent an email to its staff and parents accusing the officials who worked the game of making a “racially charged comment” to Swayzer, who is Black.
The officials belong to the Iowa City Athletic Officials Association and its leadership released a statement.
“The officials involved categorically deny making any such statements. In fact, it’s completely out of character for all of them, and they are shocked and hurt by the accusation,” the statement said. “It is concerning that the school district would put out a statement accusing the oncourt officials of making racially charged comments without first speaking to the officials or the association. Accusations like this deserve to be fully investigated by the appropriate governing bodies and we welcome such an investigation, and our members will fully cooperate.”
From a proactive public relations standpoint, the association’s statement is concise, factual and it defends the integrity of the officials without getting into an ongoing social media battle, which in today’s world many trolls want to do. They seek not to engage in a conversation but rather inflame the situation. First, it affirms without any qualifying language that the accusations are false, and it defends the integrity of the officials, pointing out they have no history or reputation of ever making racially charged remarks. It also then calls into question the way the Iowa Community School District handled the matter, pointing out the district never contacted the officials association or the referees to discuss the matter. And finally, the statement said the association and the officials would welcome a complete investigation.
Crisis manager Nierman says in the Iowa case the association likely did the right thing, because of the nature of the allegations, deciding to engage in a factual manner and having the group speak for the referees, rather than having the officials respond on their own.
“Associations are different than individual officials and they have a vested interest in defending their reputation and not simply absorbing criticism, especially if it is unfair and unfounded. But they need to have policies, procedures and protocols in place before the season starts,” Nierman said. “The best time to prepare for a crisis is before you are in the middle of it.”
Still in today’s often mean-spirited social media world, Nierman and others say the internet has empowered certain types of people who seem to take pleasure in creating chaos online, even if they are ill-informed and have no idea if what they are commenting about is wrong.
“I call a lot of the people online ‘cancel vultures.’ These people try to take apart their victims and then leave them for dead on the side of the internet highway. They want to feel empowered and that they have a voice. They want to be the online activists for a cause, in which they are the self-anointed judge, jury and the executioner,” Nierman said. “They want to feel relevant and, in many cases, the more strident they are, the more clicks and views, and engagement, it helps them grow their following and, in some cases, it monetizes the content. But they do this at the expense of other people, without pausing to think there are consequences for people in real life. It’s more than just an argument or a discussion, when you go after someone online. Ninety percent of the time people will do things online they would never do in real life. The internet gives everyone a platform.”
Dan Ronan is a Washington, D.C., journalist and retired NCAA baseball umpire and small college and high school basketball referee.
