Athlete Twittering: You're Doing It Wrong

There are a lot of outstanding athlete Twitter profiles -- maybe none better than Cowboys tight end Martellus Bennett (@MartyBTV) -- but you can already see that advertisers are starting to creep in and suck out the fun. Take Danica Patrick's new Twitter page, for example. Details found via SportsBusiness Journal

IRL driver Danica Patrick has launched a Twitter feed at the behest of existing watch sponsor Tissot, located @DanicaPatrick. She is believed to be the first major athlete to join Twitter in conjunction with a corporate entity, and Tissot will receive extensive exposure on her feed, including visual branding on her Twitter Web page.

I can already see the really subtle 140-character bursts: "Oh, just sitting here sunning in a bikini, admiring a man with a nice Tissot watch."

Even the best athlete Twitter feeds are going a little bit corporate. Shaq announced an endorsement deal with Enlyten on his Twitter page and now they're getting space on his faux viral videos.

The end is near for Twitter as a way to catch the authentic side of a lot of athletes. There are still a ton of great ones out there, but I don't think it'll be long before more corporate entities follow suit and make these things as vanilla as personal athlete blogs and whatever else came before.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.