A Disgruntled Former Employee Used The NBA’s Facebook Page To Rip The League Over Pay, Working Conditions

The NBA regularly touts the growth of its social media pages and the impressions, views, and mentions players generate across the internet, as they were one of the sports leagues to recognize the importance of growing their social presence (and what it could mean for business).

That sort of growth doesn’t just happen and requires lots of hours logged by social media managers to watch games, clip videos and highlights, and craft posts to maximize their reach. While on the outside it’s a job that sounds great, it is also very demanding during the long NBA season and, despite running the public-facing accounts of a multi-billion dollar corporation that reach many millions of people, doesn’t pay a ton. That can wear down employees and, apparently, frustrate them to the point that after they leave they might air out the NBA’s dirty laundry to their millions of followers on Facebook, as happened on Monday morning.

A former social media employee used the NBA’s Facebook account to post about low pay and poor working conditions for social media managers at the league, noting they’d been gone for a few weeks but still had access to the account.

While $50,000 after taxes is a fine salary in some places, given the league offices are in New York, that is not very much money to work in the city. The problem is, like most jobs in the sports media landscape, they are highly desirable because so many people want to work in the field even with long hours and relatively low pay. As a result, burnout isn’t a real concern for employers because there are always folks trying to break into the industry willing to embrace that grind to work covering the sport(s) they love.