(Image Source: The Miami Herald)

BY MOLLY HULSEY

You're watching multisource sports video news analysis from Newsy.
 

A Twitter account is free-- but the tweets just got really expensive for one NBA owner. Here’s HLN.

“The NBA just hammered Miami Heat owner Micky Arison for a tweet that he just sent out. They hammered him with a $500,000 fine. He recently engaged in a back-and-forth with some of his Twitter followers about the NBA lockout, and the problem is the NBA has a zero tolerance policy. Owners are not allowed to discuss anything related with the current labor dispute.”

So just what was the offending tweet, and how much will the fine really hurt Arison? WFOR breaks it down.

“A fan took him and other owners to task, saying on Twitter that they were being ‘greedy pigs.’ Arison’s response was ‘You are barking at the wrong owner.’... In case you’re wondering and counting, his brief tweet is costing him more than $15,000 per character. But he’s worth $4 billion so it won’t sting too much.”

Arison only had 140 characters to work with-- but a writer for CNET says there was a lot of meaning in that short message.

“With these few words, he pointed his tweeting fingers at small-market and, some might say, small-minded owners, such as Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen, who are gritting their teeth for an extra few pounds of freshly bitten flesh.”

But NBA commissioner David Stern tells The New York Times-- the fine was more about when the tweet was sent than what it said.

“‘Stern [noted] that the message appeared on the very night that negotiations collapsed. ‘We’re trying very hard to get a deal done with the players, or we were, and we don’t need any external distractions to that focus.’”

So is Arison’s tweet a sign of a growing rift between the owners? ESPN’s Marc Stein doesn’t think so.

“He’s not as desperate as an owner in Indiana or Memphis or Atlanta who’s looking at a half-empty building all the time. We’ve known all along that there’s no way all 30 owners are going to be on the same page, but I don’t see this having a dramatic impact on the talks from here.”

NBA games are now canceled through November 30th, and no new talks between owners and the Players’ Association have been scheduled.



Transcript by Newsy.