And you thought Twitter was free?
Miami Heat owner Micky Arison sure wouldn’t, not after being fined $500,000 by the NBA’s David Stern for sending a tweet the commish didn’t appreciate.
According to The Associated Press, Arison made references to the locked-out league’s ongoing collective bargaining process on his Twitter account.
Arison posted several tweets last Friday night, including a reply to someone who referred to those involved with the lockout as “greedy . . . pigs.”
Arison replied by saying: “Honestly u r barking at the wrong owner.”
That tweet was deleted a short time later, but the damage had been done.
The NBA prohibits owners from speaking publicly about the labor situation.
Charlotte Bobcats owner Michael Jordan was fined $100,000 in September after he told an Australian media outlet the NBA’s current business model was “broken.”
So this tweet, though technically not speaking, was costly. Counting 40 characters — spaces between words and punctuation count — the tweet cost Arison $12,500 per digit.
Don’t feel too sorry for the owner. According to The Miami Herald, Arison is worth close to $4.5 billion.
