(From left to right) Joel Robinson, Colby Allfrey, and Will Stertz during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 41-31 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Oct. 21, 2024.
Photo courtesy of Colby Allfrey.
By Dominic Feo
In decades past, if a student at the University of South Florida wanted to stay up to date with their school’s athletics without attending every game, they had to either get their hands on a newspaper or catch the highlights on television.
Now, they just need to open Instagram.
While social media has made accessing sports information easier than ever, scrolling through thousands of posts to find that information can be a tedious task. That’s why some USF fans have created Instagram accounts dedicated to posting breaking news and interesting statistics about the college’s athletic programs.
When Tampa Bay sports fans Joel Robinson, Colby Allfrey and Will Stertz began the TB3 Sports Talk podcast and created the Instagram account @tb3sportstalk, they felt like coverage of USF was an empty niche that they were happy to fill.
“We saw a need that we thought we could fill just by how long we’ve been fans, our conversations together just watching the games, and like we felt like we could kind of dissect the game,” Allfrey said.
Breaking down USF sports in a fresh and conversational way has been what Stertz thinks is what draws college students to their content.
On their podcast, the trio talks about Tampa Bay sports teams including the Buccaneers, the Rays and the Lightning, but USF is given more attention on their Instagram account. There they make collaborative posts with other USF sports fan pages, like GetLiveUSF and USFBullsDaily.
GetLiveUSF is the largest independently run USF fan page on Instagram with over 4,700 followers. They have been posting about the Bulls since April of 2023.
Their coverage of all things USF sports with detailed graphics and constant updates, has made some fans believe that the account is run by a team.
“I always try and make it clear to everybody that it’s just me running the page,” GetLiveUSF’s admin said. “Sometimes people message me, and they think I’m a group or some organization and I’m like no it’s just me.”
Another independently run page is USFBullsDaily with over 1,900 followers. They make collaborative posts with GetLiveUSF about events on campus and student events hosted by USF Athletics to hopefully increase student turnout.
The admin behind USFBullsDaily believes students are also drawn to the opinion-based posting from these accounts. During the football season, USFBullDaily and GetLiveUSF created a series called “Hate Week” where they post memes that lightheartedly poke fun at the Bulls’ opponent that week.
Photo from @USFBullsDaily on Instagram
“If you’re a fan page you can post whatever you want, and students like that,” USFBullsDaily’s admin said. “I’m not worried about what I post, and students respect that.”
Although there are only a few fan-run Instagram accounts, USFBullsDaily thinks that social media has given every USF sports fan a voice.
“With social media, anyone can have an opinion on sports, anyone can grow big with their voice, I feel like that’s pretty cool.”
