What We Can Learn About Branding from Stephen Strasburg’s Injury

by Sam Taggart | September 1st, 2010 | View Comments

Did we just witness the entirety of Stephen Strasburg’s professional baseball career in the span of mere months? I doubt it, given that the success rate of Tommy John’s surgery is over 90%, but it is a possibility.

Strasburg is one of the most hyped players in professional sports in recent memory and he was living up to the buzz in his first season. Not only was he delivering on the mound, with 98-100 MPH fastballs and dirty curveballs, but he was generating more television viewers, ballpark visitors, and straight cash for the game of baseball, a sport which is still struggling somewhat from the Steroids Era.

Many have called Strasburg’s injury a “sad day for baseball.” And it is. But let’s forget about the game for a moment and think about the individual. What a potentially awful day for Stephen Strasburg.

Considering that significant injuries happen all the time in sports (St. Louis Rams’ wide receiver Donny Avery tore his ACL last week, for example, and is out for the season), and that we live in a time where personal branding has become so important, is it foolish for any professional athlete, Stephen Strasburg or not, to not be focusing on building their brand off the field?

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LeBron James Further Destroys PR

by Gail Sideman | August 19th, 2010 | View Comments

Really LeBron?

I just shook my head and mentally shook LeBron James by the collar when I read his tweet directed at critics, yesterday: “Don’t think for one min(ute) that I haven’t been taking mental notes of everyone taking shots at me this summer. And I mean everyone!”

(For the record, I wouldn’t lay a hand on a man three-times my size, especially if I was coaching him.)

Ok, so I guess I won’t be invited to his South Beach Christmas Bash. Oh, well….

Missed drinks donning umbrellas with The Decided aside, James is still a young player in the NBA. He has no championship rings and he still has lots of endorsements to sign before he comes close to Michael Jordan, the star basketball player he has been most compared. James’ endorsements may even trail Tiger Woods’.

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Pro-Athlete Bloggers

by Sam Taggart | July 27th, 2010 | View Comments

One of the first posts I ever wrote here was about Gilbert Arenas, the true pioneer of the social media space for professional athletes. Shaq gets the credit for being the one who led the way, because of his use of Twitter, but Gilbert was in the space first. And Gilbert was a blogger! Forget Shaq writing 140-character tweets in 2008, Gilbert was writing blog posts that consisted of hundreds if not thousands of words… two years earlier!

Anyway, this post is not about Shaq or Gilbert Arenas or anyone you’ve likely heard of before. This post is about Swedish professional golfer Alex Noren and minor league baseball player Matt Antonelli. Why? They’re both professional athletes and outstanding bloggers. We focus so much on Facebook & Twitter as the tools athletes should be utilizing, but let’s not forget the power of the blog.

Alex Noren (AlexNoren.com)

Alex uses his blog very much like how I would recommend a professional athlete to use his or her blog; frequent updates with lots of pictures and behind-the-scenes looks that tell the story of who Alex Noren is. He posts pictures from the course, as well as from workouts, and the clubhouse lounge, and he’s always sure to add a caption or a bit of commentary. All the posts seem to come directly from Alex.

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Bubba Watson Tops List of Rising Sports Stars to Watch in July

by Lewis Howes | July 23rd, 2010 | View Comments

(This is a guest post by Allie Savarino Kline)

PGA Tour Travelers Cup champion, Bubba Watson, topped a debut list of Rising Sports Stars to watch in July. Watson survived a six shot deficit and a nail biting three-way playoff to emerge the victor of the June 27 tournament and recorded his first ever win in a PGA Tour event.

Other notable athletes who made July’s Rising Sports Stars list include USA Soccer Team midfielders Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey; John Isner, who won the longest match in tennis history; and NHL’s #1 overall draft-pick Taylor Hall.

Rising Sports Stars is a new monthly list distributed by Brand Affinity Technologies (BAT) and ranks the top ten U.S. professional athletes from all major sports who experienced the greatest relative growth in popularity during the prior thirty days.

While most lists only track a single data source once or twice a year, Rising Sports Stars takes a unique approach in gauging a particular athlete’s popularity, measuring multiple data points for more than 27,000 athletes that are tracked on a daily basis.

The complete Rising Sports Stars list can be found here and people can learn when new lists go live at the start of each month by subscribing to BAT’s Twitter feed at @BATimpact.

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Boys and Girls Club of America Winners during The Decision

by Matt Clark | July 9th, 2010 | View Comments

So this week would not be complete if I went through this entire saga regarding LeBron James and did not write about him once. I know everyone is sick of hearing about it, but for some reason everyone keeps reading the tabloids and listening to the countless information put out by the media. Everyone complains about it but than he or she plays devil’s advocate and wants to learn more about it anyways. I am not sure if there was a connection with the scorching temperatures that plagued the east side of the country this week, but LeBron decided he also wanted to be part of the “heat” epidemic.

Okay LeBron is on the Heat, we get it, but South Beach was not the only thing that came out a winner in the sweepstakes for King James. This article actually has little to do with the blockbuster deal that recently took place, but rather focusing on the wise choices made by the Boys and Girls Club of America.

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Stephen Strasburg’s Social Media Potential

by Sam Taggart | June 10th, 2010 | View Comments

If you don’t know about Stephen Strasburg, let me introduce you. Strasburg is a starting pitcher for the Washington Nationals. He was the number one pick in the MLB Draft last year and made his major league debut earlier this week: 7 innings, 4 hits, 2 earned runs… and 14 strikeouts! Quite the impressive entry into Major League Baseball. Strasburg is a budding superstar. He’s been talked about for the last several years in baseball’s inner circles. His fastball approaches 100 miles-per-hour and moves dramatically. His curveball is about twenty miles per hour slower than his fastball and has been known to defy gravity. Strasburg is the real deal.

Strasburg & Social Media

I see a great opportunity for Strasburg to really change the game for Major League Baseball when it comes to social media. None of the league’s superstars have truly embraced Facebook or Twitter (the league’s best social media user is Nick Swisher, but hard to call him a superstar). Other leagues have big-time players using social media, but the MLB does not.

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Build a Brand Like Apple in Sports

by Gail Sideman | May 27th, 2010 | View Comments

When you think of brand positioning for Apple Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:AAPL) a few words come to mind: creative, quality, dynamic design and secretive.

In light of the last definition, most all information that has any hint of a new product, design or circuitry hits every mode of media within minutes. Apple’s PR department has one of the easiest, most rewarding jobs in the industry because the brand has evangelists that hang on the company’s every word, official or otherwise. Media of every kind look for an edge when it comes to reporting about the company’s latest product. It’s also been rumored that Apple leaks information to the media in an effort to set off the buzz meter about a product. It works every time.

There is a brand parallel to Apple in professional sports. His name is Brett Favre.

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Open Letter to NFL Draftees

by Lewis Howes | April 22nd, 2010 | View Comments

(This is a guest article by Wesley Mallette)

Gentlemen,

It’s almost here. Big weekend. Life-changing weekend for you and your families.

You are going to hear a lot of things throughout the course of the next several days leading up to the draft, straight through the completion of your first season. Sometime between Thursday and Saturday you may hear your name called. You may not. You may go in the early rounds. You may not go at all.

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The Vilifying of Athlete Crimes

by Michelle Hill | April 6th, 2010 | View Comments

Are athletes judged and dealt with more harshly for their indiscretions and blatant crimes than the Average Joe? Are they scrutinized and seen as villains under the media’s microscope in a way that’s justified by those who condemn them?

If we’re honest about it, most people thrive on public scandal and it is evidenced by the way we were glued to our televisions during the O.J. trial. Of course, other sports heroes have caught our attention with scandals of varying degrees, like Kobe Bryant, Rae Carruth, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Nate Newton, Michael Vick, Tonya Harding, Mike Tyson, and most recently, Tiger Woods.

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WWTD – What Will Tiger Do?

by Gail Sideman | April 5th, 2010 | View Comments

It’s an exciting time of year for sports. It’s officially opening day for Major League Baseball. The Final Four tips in Indianapolis with storybook character, Butler University, taking on hoops behemoth, Duke in the evening. In the midst of it all will be lots of talk about Sunday’s big National Football League trade of Donovan McNabb from the Philadelphia Eagles to the Washington Redskins.

Oh, and Tiger is scheduled to hold a press conference today at 2 p.m., EST at Augusta National, site of The Master’s. It will be the first time that professional golfer Tiger Woods, takes questions from the media after he admitted to multiple affairs, and watched his nearly spotless brand derail last fall.

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