So explosive has been the impact of social media that sports journalists long ago swapped their little black book of contacts for accounts on micro-blogging websites, and frequently get their breaking news direct from comments from sports stars now too distant to interview.
However, there's increasing concern that sports stars are indirectly being silenced by sponsors. Having enough cachet to act as product endorser is the point where many athletes start to earn serious money, but the very sports events that make them famous often have separate agendas. Does the old world need to catch up?
"This year has so far provided lots of lessons in how sports marketing is evolving," says Tom Scourfield, a partner at law firm CMS Cameron McKenna. "The key theme being that event organisers will now go to great lengths to protect official sponsors from innovative stealth marketing techniques."
He's talking about "guerilla" marketing stunts from brands who sign no deal with event organisers, yet try to surreptitiously raise their profile in whatever way they can. The prize being a global television audience.
This is what happened at the Euro 2012 soccer tournament, which was held during the summer in the Ukraine and Poland, and televised live to a global audience of 1.1 billion.
Immediately after scoring during a 3-2 defeat to Portugal, Denmark striker Nicklas Bendtner lifted his shirt to reveal the name of bookmaker Paddy Power on the waistband of his green underpants; hardly an iconic image, but organisers Uefa clearly felt it had been ambushed by the Irish company. They promptly found Bendtner guilty of improper conduct, banned him for one match, and fined him €100,000 (HK$1 million). "Players risk being fined more for undermining official sponsors than for violent misconduct on the pitch," says Scourfield.
Banning advertising by individual athletes is a constant battle, but it's not without casualties. London's 2012 Olympic Games organisers tried to prevent all athletes from using Twitter to endorse non-official sponsors. "Some American athletes staged a Twitter protest against the rules, which they felt prevented them from maximising earnings at a time when their profile was at its highest," says Scourfield, who believes authorities will continue to ramp-up efforts to silence all non-official brands.