Sports publicity gets a boost on Bluesky as Twitter’s PR nightmare rages on

Bluesky is reaching for the stars and generating good publicity as a result.

The social media app that gained ground when Twitter took a reputational tumble, Bluesky, has rolled out push notifications from real news sources, starting with sports.

“When we think about the core communities that really made micro-blogging as a format work on Twitter or other social platforms, sports was definitely a big one, especially for breaking news,” a Bluesky spokesperson told Sportico.

You can find me on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/gsideman.bsky.social. And tell your favorite leagues and sources to join the team. We can’t wait to chat!

Speaking of social …

Linda Yaccarino finally resigned from Twitter — but not before her PR mess turned into a full-on publicity nightmare. Running a platform that spewed anti-Semitic and racist garbage while threatening advertisers who bailed didn’t do her any favors.

She shocked the ad world in 2023 when she left NBCUniversal, where she had status and respect, to become Twitter’s CEO. Then came guilt by association — for starters.

If quasi-taking over what had become a controversial social media platform (Elon Musk really ran the show) didn’t dent her image, what followed did.

This week, though — whew. (I’ll let The Washington Post and The Wrap tell you how Twitter pooped itself again. Short version: its AI tool, Grok, went full KKK.)

Yaccarino and app owner Musk spent two years filing lawsuits and torching advertisers over unproven collusion. ☝🏼PR tip: That’s not how you rebuild trust.☝🏼 Her once-trusted reputation crumbled. 

Most of us would try to win back advertisers with decency and a clean slate. You certainly wouldn’t tell them to go fu** themselves like her boss did — while she stood by and at times, amplified him.

Numbers don’t lie.

As of last fall, the one-letter site many of us still call Twitter had lost 72% of its ad spend and 79% of its value since Musk bought the site in 2022. In other words, their tactics shouldn’t be used if you want to increase sales and generate positive vibes.

Does Yaccarino even care?

Hard to say. She backed the circus for two years, then graciously thanked Musk on her way out with more respect than she showed businesses that once spent millions of dollars on the once-hot social platform.

🐶 On a lighter, brighter, cuter note: The Cincinnati Reds featured a ceremonial “first fetch,” and it was one of the most pawsitively perfect promotions I’ve seen this baseball season. (Yeah, I wrote that pun.) Thanks, Reds — and Front Office Sports for sharing it online.

©2025 Gail Sideman, gpublicity.com, SIDEbar

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