Twittering has become the new phenomenon throughout the world and it is no surprise that athletes are using it too But what is surprising, is that star athletes are twittering during games and practices. The NBA announced today that Tyson Chandler and Amare Stoudemire were fined $7,500 for tweeting during the game.

Earlier this year, the NFL banned the use of tweeting during games and practices, and banned the media from providing game updates through social media outlets.

Before the NBA season began, the league sent out a memo to all 30 teams, spelling out a policy for electronic communication devices and social media sites and services during games. The memo stated that players, coaches and team personnel were instructed to stay off their sell phones, twitter and Facebook accounts during the game and 45 minutes before the start of the game.

Back to Amare and Chandler. Stoudemire’s tweet came during Phoenix’s November 25 game against the Memphis Grizzlies. Here’s were it get’s a little confusing. Fan and twitter user Brett Pollakoff attended the game and got a tweet from Amare’s account. Brett knew it couldn’t have came from Amare because he was watching him on the court right in front of him. Later that night, another tweet was sent from Amare’s page saying “Hey tweeps! U might have received a tweet earlier this evening. I’m a talented guy, but not that skilled to play & tweet at the same time. I had my good friend Super Fan Jay, u might remember him from last years all star campaign, help out with my twitter contest this time. From now on he’ll sign off when he tweets so no one gets confused between me and Super Fan Jay! Good 2 know my tweeps are paying close attn!”

This situation with Amare isn’t rare. Many athletes hire people to tweet for them or have friends tweet for them from time to time, so it appears that Stoudemire is in no trouble.

The same goes for Chandler, but his situation is just a little different. He used an automated service, twitterfeed, that sends automatically updates Chandler’s account.

- John A. Roberts

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Tags | Basketball, NBA, nfl, twitter