🦋 Bluesky Social

Last week, there was a one-day story about the NFL prohibiting the Patriots from being on Bluesky, with some speculation that it’s got something to do with the NFL appeasing X owner Elon Musk. He has certainly earned any skepticism about his influence and motivations, but there’s not much reason to believe there’s a political angle. Every major social media platform had some period during its early growth when teams wanted to use it, but the NFL hadn’t yet blessed it.

For teams, it’s simple -- they want to be where their fans are. If a new social platform experiences big user growth, any content producer worth their salary is going to want to join them.

But it’s not so simple in the eyes of the NFL, which is acutely aware of the league’s capability to be a business kingmaker. If all 32 teams organically got on Bluesky, the platform could create a robust NFL news hub out of those accounts without much work at all. The NFL knows exactly what that would be worth to Bluesky, and wants to be paid for it.