Politics | Sports

Deadspin: Another social media backfire for Washington team

Thursday, May 29, 2014

The logo for the Change the Mascot campaign

The Washington NFL team asked fans to show their support on Twitter but the responses probably weren't the ones that were expected:

We weren't going to do this, we swear. We figured there was no need for a Twitter roundup when it was immediately clear to everyone that the Redskins' latest PR move, an attempt to galvanize fans into flooding Sen. Harry Reid with support for the team name, was backfiring wildly. Then we heard from Reid's office. Even they were surprised it "was so massively a failure."
Last week, the Senate Majority Leader sent a letter, signed by fully half of U.S. Senators, calling on the NFL to pressure Dan Snyder to change the team's name. The Skins attempted to fire back yesterday when five different star players tweeted their support for the name, in identical language undoubtedly fed to them by the team.
"The Skins tried to engage folks, and it has failed miserably," Faiz Shakir, Reid's digital director, told us. In the minutes after the Skins' tweet, Shakir said "we haven't found more than one or two that are actually supportive."

Get the Story:
Harry Reid's Office Is Laughing At The Sad #RedskinsPride Campaign (Deadspin 5/29)

Another Roundup:
The 12 Least Helpful Tweets for Dan Snyder’s Team’s Hashtag Game (The Washington City Paper 5/29)