With instant updates, live streaming video, and social media the world of sport management has become increasingly digital. A public relations professional is charged with maintaining the client’s image while carefully mitigating and managing any negative press. So When does it become necessary to use damage control? Here are some of the top PR challenges…
Tag Archives | PR
Social Media Changes Sports Photography
The world is changing rapidly and from now onwards the speed of that change is only going to further increase. We’re daily bombarded with thousands of images. Every photo can be worth a thousand words. But which images are the ones that stick and make a difference? Which (and whose) story is being told (and…
Interview with Andrew Krafsur on Spira Footwear and Sports Entrepreneurship
I recently got to meet the CEO of Spira Footwear, Andrew Krafsur. He is a lawyer turned entrepreneur and with the help of his brother, they launched the revolutionary Wavespring technology used in their running and walking shoes today. The technology has been proven to give athletes better results (both in comfort and in speed), so much…
Text Messages Aren’t Good for PR
Nothing is sure in this world except death, taxes and text messages that will come back to bite you in places that will hurt.
Right now, future NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, Brett Favre, is smarting from even the suggestion that he texted a former game-day reporter for the New York Jets (there is no verification of these stories and the investigation by the NFL is in its infancy). This news evolves as golfer Tiger Woods continues to reel from released text messages, voice mails and his eventual admission to infidelity that cost him millions of dollars in endorsements and his marriage during the past year.
My guess is that phone companies are vetting each future endorsement prospect like never before.
There is a lesson here for everyone, however: everything we record in type or voice and transmit via Internet, phone or cable, is forever traceable and transferrable. The messages are also resilient to destruction. They are the movie ticket stubs that we keep for years as mementos or prom dress that hangs in a closet decades after your big night. The big difference is that texts, emails and voice messages tell stories. There’s little to guess about what’s being communicated because it’s out there for people to read and hear if that once-special someone chooses to share what you may have assumed to be forever private.
PGA misses PR Opportunity with Fans
A couple of weeks ago I was faced with a challenge unlike anything I’d experienced in the last few years while attending the Professional Golf Association’s premier event – the PGA Championship — at the beautiful Whistling Straights golf course in Kohler, Wis. I went to the tourney as a fan, not as a member of the media, which limited my communication throughout the day.
According to PGA rules, I was not allowed to bring a phone or mobile device of any kind (which in my case, are one in the same) into the venue. I could deal with having to silence my phone, but to be removed from social media and email was trying for someone who depends on those tools to run and monitor a publicity business.
After all, I was pretty excited about the prospects of how I could monitor other holes from my iPhone – the PGA touted its apps like few other organizations do. But they weren’t app-licable to me. I was there.
LeBron James Further Destroys PR
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’.
Sports Organizations Enter Political Fray & PR Battle
In the last weeks I’ve thought a lot about a hot button issue that began with a political decision, yet has touched sports organizations from the National Basketball League to Major League Baseball…or should I say that they hit on the topic by no choice of their own. As if the Arizona Immigration Law SB 1070…
5 Proactive PR Tips for Sports Figures
It’s official. Tiger Woods announced on his website that he will begin his comeback from the personal mega-bogey that derailed his professional career for four months. Ben Roethlisberger is still fighting a sexual assault charge, his second such fumble in three years. Four University of Oregon football players have been in trouble with the law…
Reputation Management: Athletes Facing Controversy
(This is a guest article by Wesley Mallette) Athletes in trouble. We see it every day in the news and find ourselves wondering aloud, “Wow. Did they really just say/do that?” The vast majority of athletes will face a crisis of some proportion during their career or post-career. How they handle it is everything, and…