• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, December 8, 2016

Corrupt, incompetent, arrogant, pointless – the traditional roster of complaints about the National Football League got even longer earlier this year with the addition of “totally lacking in common sense,” following its bizarre ban on teams sharing video and other types of content on social media. Fortunately the NFL has recognized the folly of this rule and has loosened its restrictions, according to an internal memo obtained by Yahoo Finance.

As noted in previous posts, back in October the NFL planted its flag deep in the realm of stupidity with new rules that essentially forbade teams from posting any video besides highlights already shared by the NFL itself. Teams who violated the rules could be fined anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000 for repeat offenses. Worse yet, the NFL took a very broad view of what constitutes video, including GIFs of any kind, even if they contain content completely unrelated to the NFL or football generally.

Unsurprisingly, the ban on social video sharing by teams was met with an outpouring of derision and mockery, including plenty of trolling by the teams themselves. In a number of amusing examples, teams staged video “reenactments” of key plays using tiny magnetic figurines and a cardboard cutout football on a stick, apparently produced with the aid of an NFL Game Day board game.

Now the NFL is wisely walking it back – sort of. Teams can post up to sixteen videos on game days, and the league has entered into a test partnership with Giphy to provide “high quality and authentic NFL GIFs of ancillary game and historical/iconic content.”

The league also loosened its prohibition on social sharing of video during game play and for an hour afterwards, by allowing teams to share video and GIFS of touchdown celebrations, fans cheering and the like – but on-field action footage remains off-limits (kind of the whole point of the teams’ comical protests). At least teams can share video of fans reacting, potentially an important driver of social engagement. Finally, teams can post up to five “snaps” on Snapchat during a game.

The new rules outlined in the memo apply to the teams’ presence on all the major social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Periscope, and YouTube.