Miss Alabama Career Boost Plays Out on Twitter
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Katherine Webb's Twitter profile photo CREDIT: Twitter.com |
Sometimes, one person’s career gaffe is another person’s gain. That was certainly the case this week for Brent Musburger, the football announcer for ESPN, who got himself into some trouble Monday night for taking his eyes off of the ball and fumbling over Katherine Webb, girlfriend of University of Alabama quarterback, A.J. McCarron.
Musburger made several comments pertaining to the former beauty queen as the cameras at Monday night’s BCS Championship game captured her in the stands.
Though his comments seemed harmless enough to Webb herself, who said she was flattered by the attention, ESPN was forced to publicly apologize for Musburger’s moment of unprofessionalism. And while the announcer, 73, may see his career suffer as a result of this faux pas, Webb, 23, has everything to gain from the incident.
Webb, who won the title of Miss Alabama in 2012, is a part-time model and a training director at Chick-fil-A in Columbus, Ga. Since Monday night’s game, her Twitter handle @_KatherineWebb has gained nearly 250,000 new followers on Twitter and been asked out by at least one professional football player via the social media site.
Webb has also been tweeting back and forth with Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump), who tweeted:
We are going to ask Katherine Webb to be a judge at the Miss USA Pageant coming up in Las Vegas.
Webb responded:
@realDonaldTrump Good talking to you today..I know me and @10AJMcCarron are looking forward to coming to #NYC soon!
By early Thursday (Jan. 10) morning, Webb was using Twitter to regain control of her brand, tweeting:
Doing good for others...my objective for all this media madness. #givingback
Twitter played a part in both sides of the Webb/Musburger saga, in fact. It was Twitter that brought attention to Musburger’s inappropriate comments in the first place, with viewers tweeting that he reminded them of a creepy uncle and that he was making all of America feel uncomfortable. Twitter is also the outlet for all those whose attention is now drawn to Webb and her game-changing good looks.
It’s impossible to say whether Webb’s star will burn out by the end of the week or if she’ll stick around the spotlight a bit longer. But the way she manages her image via social media today will likely determine whether all this media hype is valuable to her career tomorrow.