#Hailstate appeared in one end zone during Mississippi State's grudge match with Ole Miss
Mississippi State used a Twitter hashtag in its end zone during its annual Egg Bowl game versus Ole Miss on Saturday, and the results were as good as its 31-3 victory over its cross state rivals.
The use of the #Hailstate hash tag, placed in the north end zone at the game, spurred continued Twitter activity through Nov. 28, with some fans suggesting use of #Hailstate on helmets and uniforms in future games.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban also approved, according to a Mashable report.
“It’s a fun way to involve social media at the game, and to TV viewers it’s going to stir up some emotions between both teams,” Cuban said.
Cuban said he would consider using a similar approach at Dallas Mavericks games, but NBA licensing rules would be a significant hurdle for Cuban to clear before he could make good on that promise.
Club de Fútbol Jaguares de Chiapas' jerseys feature player's handles in the same color scheme and font as Twitter
Although we’ll believe Cuban when we see something like @the_real-dirk on the back of Dirk Nowitzki’s jersey, the use of Twitter hashtags is indeed an emerging trend at sporting events. Mississippi State’s #Hailstate comes fewer than three weeks after Mexican premiere division soccer team Club de Fútbol Jaguares de Chiapas replaced players’ names with their Twitter handles on the back of team jerseys.
In the United States, this Twitter-tactic is most likely to receive widespread use at the high-school level, where school administrators have greater latitude over what they put on playing fields. It is a solid way to indelibly etch in the minds of attendees that an active Twitter stream is available. Increased fan engagement in high-school and minor college sporting events benefits such blogging sites as BleacherReport.com and SBNation.com because they are capable of covering high school and minor college teams better than ESPN, CBS Sports, Fox Sports and others, who all have to focus on national stories to maintain interest in the major college and professional sporting events they pay hundreds of millions of dollars to broadcast.
Ironically, Mississippi State is one of the least Twitter-savvy college football programs, counting only 10,663 followers for @mstateathletics. In addition, the Twitter handle @hailstate is independently run, and has just 640 followers. Here’s @hailstate retweeting a far-more-widely-followed Ole Miss commentary minutes before this blog post was published on MobileSportsReport:
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