What I Might Have Said: Post-Mortem on U.S. vs. Brazil

Just before he left for New Jersey, I handed Eduardo my iPhone with these final words of advice, “Just imagine you’re me.”

I was supposed to be going to the U.S. vs. Brazil game at New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. Instead, I found myself standing in my kitchen, walking my husband through the steps of a Foursquare check-in one more time before he headed out alone, with my phone. He looked up at me and said, “Angie, we work… because we’re different.”

Sports and social media are perhaps the two areas where that difference is most pronounced. He is a political scientist who has never tweeted. I am a public relations professional whose title recently changed to include the words social media.  During our first World Cup as a couple, 2002, I woke up one night over at his place to find him sitting in the living room at 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning staring at the television, his shoulders draped with a United States flag. When he took me to the first and only soccer game of my life – U.S. vs. Argentina, Orange Bowl, 2003 – I spent more time with my eyes on the fans than on the field.

Social media was in its infancy back then, but I did manage to find a post on a thread on bigsoccer.com: “US vs. Argentina will be a different matter altogether [sic]. There will be tons of Argentineans [sic] in attendance, other South Americans who dislike Argentineans and maybe even some U.S. fans too.” That post was a spot-on prediction, and probably not too far from what might have been said by some about the U.S. vs. Brazil match I was about to miss.  I can’t remember a single red, white and blue jersey in the place – just a sea of little suns on bright white and baby blue.

I guess that’s why my husband’s first post – second, if you count 7:08 – pm Beer for $9.75. Not a good place for alcoholics. – was all about what was happening in the stands.

8:05 pm – Sitting in the Brazil section might be best way to see a USA game.

My Argentinean colleague Pablo did this hilarious impression the other day of how he imagined a U.S. fan at the match: some sort of a hybrid of a couch potato and a robot mindlessly slamming popcorn and Bud into his mouth, glazed eyes staring straight ahead. That must have been what Eduardo had in mind when he agreed to seats on the visitor side with his Brazilian friend Jorge back in May.

Four minutes after that post, my husband earned me the Super Swarm badge on Foursquare. What a swell guy. “50 person foursquare swarms are soooo 2009,” Foursquare told me when I clicked on the link on my check-in post from Facebook. “We upped it to 250 for the Super Swarm and you still nailed it. Well played!” One tweet I read said there were 77,000 fans at the game – I’m looking forward to seeing stats for how many of them were online.

8:32 pm – Too much social media being used, can’t upload to Facebook.

After the one about the beer, I’d texted him back – yes, three clicks to a character on his Samsung – 7:19 pm (Me) – U can post 2 FB 2.  This is fun. I was enjoying how he pretending to be me was providing a reflection of his interpretations of who I am online.  Part of me was hoping, though, for something about the game.

I finally got it at 8:39 pm – Goal Brazil – and 8:54 pm – Yellow and white are actually equally distributed (I have to confess I don’t quite understand what that second one means), but not before two interesting tidbits that deserve further analysis:

8:36 pm – Brazilians love showing families back home pics of the game live.

8:37 pm – Because game is only private cable back home due to conflict with soap operas – which make more money.

Here, in less than 140 characters, the social-media-averse academic I’m in love with conveyed what this whole social media and sports thing is all about. Cue the bullets:

• Social media allows people to share important game moments across geography in real time.
• Social media is finding ways around monopolies of old-media content and creating new channels and definitions for sports news.
• While the economics might not be entirely figured out, a growing online audience for sports is undeniably there.
• Social media connects people around the teams they love and the games everyone is talking about.

An old soccer-playing friend from middle school was “watching the USA vs. Brazil game undisturbed.  For the time being,” according to her status on Facebook. “If you are at Meadowlands for the soccer game, I’m a little jealous!” she posted on my wall.  I’m jealous, too, Brittany, since I was actually getting my sick kid fed, bathed and into bed, so didn’t get to watch the game at all.

By halftime, the poor performance must have spoiled the fun of imagining himself as his wife, that or sheer awe was at play for these two posts, 20 minutes apart:

9:10 pm – Halftime and all break out the iPhone. Holy crazy.

9:30 pm – iPhones everywhere. Unbelievable.

I imagine it taking him a full 20 minutes to pan across all the Brazilians around him who had peeled their eyes away from their team to catch up online. I did notice a massive spike on the stream around that time and can’t imagine the headaches AT&T must have been having routing all that traffic.

9:31 (Me) – “Pics of them?” I asked, meaning images of the quick-draw-McGraw Brazilians and their mighty iPhones I could share online.  Not a word back until this:

10:25 pm – Game over. Facebook clogged.

10:29 pm (Me) – What does clogged look like?

10:47 pm – Clogged is waiting 40 minutes for a sweaty crowded train.

And, boom, in that last post I was finally there, content as a kitten right there with Eduardo amid all of that funk and disappointment in the wake of that losing game. He had managed to get my voice pitch perfect at last. That was exactly how I would have said it, just the kind of post that would leave me satisfied for half the afternoon.

So, sports and social media? The U.S. vs. Brazil game is proof that they are converging and transforming each other and fans in the process.  Twitter was too much to ask of a social-media late adopter and hard-core soccer fan like my husband. A single game – of SOCCER! in the UNITED STATES! – slowed down iPhone connectivity for the world’s largest social network badly enough that my undercover operation was stymied, left up to a rookie and the new kid on the block, Foursquare, to soldier on.

I watched Eduardo check me in at Secaucus Junction Station (with 19 others) and then New York Penn Station (with 24 others) while I wrote this, and a big part of me wished I had been there to do it myself. Yet it was kind of fun finding out if I could follow along with nothing but my husband and social media at my side. The tools we use to connect and share are changing things, shaping the way we interact at, about and even with the games – and people – we love. Oh, and I can’t wait till my husband gets back home – and it’s not just because I miss my phone.

Angie Henderson Moncada is managing director of strategy/social media at (add)ventures and a faculty member at the University of New Haven.   A writer, teacher and corporate communications professional, Angie has more than a dozen years of experience working with organizations in the non-profit, education, and corporate sectors.  Her writing has been published in Hispanic Monthly, PR News, The Providence Journal, The Miami Herald and other publications.   She also blogs regularly at www.thevirtualwatercooler.wordpress.com.