NEW DELHI: A day before the start of the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League, Rajasthan Royals were in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. According to the franchise they fired their social media team for a Twitter post about their team captain Sanju Samson.
The tweet, which was later deleted showed Samson sitting on the team bus with a towel wrapped around his head. The caption read: 'Kya khoob lagti ho', with a smiley face emoticon.
(A screengrab of the deleted tweet)
Samson subsequently put out a tweet himself and appeared to be quite miffed with the post. His post read: 'Its ok for friends to do all this but teams should be professional'.
The Royals then publicly announced that they have sacked their social media team after receiving a complaint from Samson for the tweet which was in bad taste.
A video of several members of the RR franchise, including Jos Buttler, R Ashwin,Lasith Malinga and Kumar Sangakkara among others criticising the social media team of the franchise was then put up. The video seemed to suggest that this was the last post by the outgoing social media team of the Royals.
But on Friday morning, the entire episode turned out to be a publicity stunt as the franchise revealed that the firing of the social media team on Friday evening was nothing but a prank.
The fans, many of whom were disappointed with the sacking of the social media team, lambasted Samson on Friday for not being able to take a joke.
And as soon as the Royals on Saturday revealed that the entire episode was just a prank, the fans quickly realised that it was just a publicity stunt and nothing more.
Several fans once again criticised the franchise for taking things too far in the name of a joke.
In today's day and age of social media when serious news is disseminated on various platforms, for a franchise to do something like this is in bad taste. Social media handles of all teams are followed by millions for authentic news and updates.
This exercise, very clearly done to get more social engagement numbers, has now put the Rajasthan Royals franchise in serious risk of never being taken seriously again by their fans on their social media platforms. At least in the near future. The furore is understandable.
Any team update now by the franchise might be viewed with suspicion.
The inaugural champions Royals take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in their tournament opener on Tuesday.
