John Henry is living the dream familiar to millions of sports fans. On one hand, he owns the Red Sox, one of baseball’s most historic teams. On the other, he owns Liverpool Football Club, one of soccer’s most historic teams. It’s a scenario that speaks to the modern international sports market. And it also means that he has really weird problems.

Sure, John Henry and wife, Linda Pizzuti Henry, are both on Twitter. But instead of encountering the familiar problems that some of us normal people occasionally experience (login issues, struggles with crafting a good bio, finding the best cat GIFs), Team Henry simply cannot escape the Twitter chatter of their most vocal fanbase: Liverpool supporters.

It’s no secret that Liverpool fans have a worldwide presence and are absolutely desperate to see the club finally raise the Premier League trophy. The hilarious part is the degree to which they hound Team Henry.

Example: Henry tweeted a Boston Globe article (yes, he owns them too) about China’s struggling market. This was utterly unrelated to Liverpool. And yet:

There are literally 20 other responses just like that (Jurgen Klopp, for those unaware, is the Liverpool manager). For every legitimate response to the tweet, 10 soccer fans had advice on which player to sign next (Marco Reus seems to be the consensus, if you were wondering).

Even when Henry goes for a controversial tweet (again, unrelated to Liverpool), the fans just keep coming at him. This was a classic “shots fired” tweet when WGBH reported something about the Globe’s delivery crisis that Henry took issue with:

It was, in Twitter terms, kind of a big deal. The head of Boston’s most recognizable news publication calling out another publication. Of course, what were the overwhelming majority of responses? You guessed it:

 

 

And of course, there are dozens of other tweets similarly oriented as the ones above. (Props to the Yossi Benayoun fan). Savage Liverpool fans leave no stone left unturned. Even Red Sox fans get drowned out by the swell of LFC Twitter. It’s 99 percent harmless, with most people just shouting player names at Henry.

And Linda Pizzuti Henry, to her credit, is a major driver of the conversation, frequently live-tweeting games and news about the club. On Tuesday, when Liverpool won a penalty-kick shoutout to clinch a spot in the League Cup Final, her victory tweet drew over a 1,000 retweets within seconds:

In all, the humorous piling-on that Liverpool fans do to Henry’s unrelated tweets are obviously indicative of what modern sports owners now face. With one more platform for fans to express themselves, owners can expect a vocal reply from their team’s base of support (both good and bad). Henry’s position is unique, since he owns both sports teams as well as media companies. It means that he has reasons for being on Twitter that are totally unrelated to his sports interests.

Of course, tell that to the Liverpool fans. They don’t care what he tweets about. They’re going to respond no matter what. And you can guess what it will be about.

Via Webjedi, CC By SA 4.0

They don't care if he tweets about local politics, China or the Red Sox. They want signings. And they want them now.
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