Football Team Wears Twitter Names On Kits

On the day the Manchester United unveiled that they are building their own global social-media network, another remarkable news came by: Mexican Football Team Jaguares Replaces Player Names With Twitter Handles.

This isn’t the first time that soccer and social media have collided, as many football stars use Twitter and Facebook to interact with their fans. However, most initiatives so far have come from players themselves, rather than from their clubs.

Jaguares is not the first club that used Twitter accounts on their kits. In the absence of a paying shirt sponsor, Valencia decided to take the opportunity for a little self promotion and slapped their Twitter handle on the front of their shirts for their match against Barcelona.

Valencia might be the first big football club advertising a Twitter account on their kits. Before the Twitter kit they had just under 35,000 followers (september 2011), now they have more than 47,000 followers.

Earlier this year Spanish football club Sevilla came up with the idea of putting profile pictures of their fans on the back of their shirts for just 24,90 euro per fan.

It will be interesting to see if more and more teams do this or if we’ll get to a stage where brands pay to have their Twitter names, fan profiles or other social media on a sports team kits rather than their simple brand name or website.