New Twitter owner Elon Musk just might prove to be an annoyance to folks who are fans of college football.
The tech magnate and investor took over the social media giant earlier this year and is shaping it into his own machine. Things are changing where the little, blue bird is concerned; and one of Elon’s new rules could have a drastic impact on one of the more novel and less conventional college football traditions.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced earlier this week that any accounts sharing flight tracking information will be banned. The rule comes as a result of a certain account that has been posting info on the movement of Musk’s private jet.
“Last night, car carrying lil X in LA was followed by crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood,” Musk tweeted for context. “Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family.”
This is understandable enough, except when one stops to consider that the college football tradition is likely to be an unintended victim. Over the last few years, fans and journalists alike have used Twitter to track flights of coaches who may be traveling to various locations to sign new deals.
While it isn’t a surefire method of determining where a coach might land, it has reached the end zone on multiple occasions in terms of breaking a big story before teams actually make their announcements.
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As you might imagine, fans aren’t all that pleased about the rule as it’s about to make college football news a bit less fun, though some fans have noted that this will not be indiscriminate and Twitter will only be targeting certain accounts.
Either way, fans will need to be mindful whenever they try to use flight info to get the drop on their favorite teams.
This would also be bad for fans of European soccer as flight info and airport sightings are often used to formulate reports on blockbuster transfers.
Transfer scoops are huge for fans following the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1, and the Dutch Eredivisie. The rule could make the spread of information, with regards to big player moves, a whole lot harder.
