PR in Sports

Roger Clemens is back in the news folks! That’s right, “The Rocket” finally came out of the woodwork Tuesday morning, giving his first interview in nearly a year. Clemens appeared on Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio, and in typical fashion, talked a lot but said nothing.

Clemens spent the interview denying steroid use and defending himself against a new New York Daily News book. American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime was released Tuesday and recounts the news that has seen Clemens go from sure fire Hall-of-Famer, to disgraced.

Which brings us to the mystery of the interview. Very few people were even even aware the book was coming out. Michael Wilbon, from Los Angeles on Tuesday’s PTI, mentioned he was at the Houston Rockets shoot-around prior to Game 5 of their series with the Lakers, and media from Clemens hometown had not even heard of the book.

So why appear on Mike and Mike? Clemens had nothing new to say, and actually drew attention to a book that had little momentum. But, what most analysts seemed to miss, was that Clemens did say some things. He did get his message across. He just did it about an hour before his interview.

At about 7:30 a.m. Gene Grabowski, Clemens new PR rep, appeared on Mike and Mike. Grabowski’s interview was definitely interesting, because as mentioned Clemens later said nothing, but I do question Mike and Mike on having Clemens PR person on to set up his own interview. It might have been better to have an impartial PR pro on to breakdown what Clemens needed to do in his interview.

Regardless, Grabowski is a leading and respected crisis communications professional, and he swung for the fences when Clemens was unable too. Grabowski continually referred to Brian McNamee, Clemens’ accuser, as simply “an admitted drug dealer”, and the authors of the new Clemens book as “tabloid reporters”.

Most interesting was Grabowski’s recount of looking Clemens straight in the eye before bringing him on as a client. This definitely brought back images of the famous “What you do have is my whole word, and it’s stronger than oak” line from Jerry McGuire, and we all know how that turned out. Grabowski repeatedly asked the public not rush to judgment and to wait for Clemens to tell his side of the story. He pleaded “innocent until proven guilty”, painting Clemens as a wrongly accused celebrity.

But, from a PR perspective, we’re all left wondering, why set up the interview in the first place if Clemens himself had nothing new to say? There’s got to be a larger plan from Grabowski, right?…Right?

Grabowski did do his job during his segment, getting Clemens’ message out, but many seemed to miss his interview altogether. In the end, this entire thing seemed to be a colossal disaster for Clemens and Grabowski. The overall strategy seemed to be ‘Hey we’re Roger’s new PR firm and we have to recommend something, he can’t do nothing’, when that’s exactly what Clemens should have continued doing.

Why not let Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez continue to steal the steroid headlines? Now everyone knows about the new York Daily News book, which Grabowski admitted in his interview brings no new information or accusations against Clemens, and public sentiment towards Clemens might be at an all-time low, if that’s possible. I guess we’ll have to wait for another shoe to drop if this episode is going to prove to be a smart move.

Rick Pitino's PR risk is paying off in exortion story

Saturday night University of Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino issued a press release through the schools athletic office indicating that the FBI is currently investigating attempted extortion against him. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Pitino is accusing the estranged wife of Louisville’s equipment manager, Karen Sypher, as threatening him as part of a scheme to extort money.

Extortion is a serious criminal matter, and hopefully the issue gets resolved quickly. But from a PR perspective, did Rick Pitino and his team make the correct move by issuing their statement out in front of this story hitting the media?

According to reports Sypher did an interview with Candyce Clifft of WDRB-Fox 41 in Louisville, but the Fox affiliate chose not to air the story because they could not corroborate Sypher’s claims. I’m going to assume that Pitino and his team found out about the interview and made the decision to beat Sypher to the media. They most likely were not aware that the story had been held by WDRB.

In most situations this strategy has the potential to make an issue public that might have never seen the light of day, but let’s face it, Rick Pitino is one of the most famous coaches in basketball today. This story would have gotten to the media at some point.

But, by beating Sypher to the punch, Pitino’s risk has paid off. He has shaped and framed this story in his favor. Nearly every media outlet in the country has covered this in some way, and in nearly every story it frames Pitino as being the victim targeted by an “estranged” wife. Granted something must have gone down in order for Sypher to attempt to extort Pitino, but few outlets have even reported on that aspect.

In Pitino’s original statement he declined to name Sypher as the woman who is attempting to extort him, most likely in order to protect Karen Sypher’s husband Tim and their children. Sunday Karen Sypher’s name did become public, but once again the Pitino team made a smart move. They issued another statement from the Louisville Athletic Department, this time from Tim Sypher defending Rick Pitino.

In the end the risk was making a potentially damaging story public that might not have reached the public. That really is a huge risk for someone whose profession is not only to coach basketball games, but to go into the living room of high school kids and convince their parents that he can be responsible for their children at the next level.

But, by beating Sypher to the media, Pitino has managed to take control of the story with his message from his point of view. Pitino secured backing from his school’s President and Athletic Director, as well as the husband of the woman attempting to extort him. He has also framed Karen Sypher as a crazy “estranged” wife and mother.

It was certainly a risky move by the Pitino camp, but to this point Pitino has owned this story.

We’ve spent a lot of time looking at how situations in the sports world could have been handled better from a PR/Marketing perspective, but I wanted to take this opportunity to look at a couple jobs well done. The PR staffs of the Los Angeles Angels and the Philadelphia Phillies, when faced with the worst of circumstances, came through with flying colors, ensuring the media was kept in the loop, incorrect information was not leaked and players and families were respected.

Joe Favorito at Sports Marketing and PR Roundup has a great recap of how the Angels handled the tragic death of Nick Adenhardt. The Angels organization made the right move by canceling their game versus Oakland last Thursday, and led by head of communications Tim Mead, ensured information was released in a timely, yet appropriate manner. The PR staff made sure players, coaches, management and ownership were on the same page and respected the Adenhardt family throughout their decision making.

With Adenhardt losing his life at such a young age the Angels were not only faced with a tragic situation, but with this being a criminal situation, also had to deal with media that do not normally cover the Angels or baseball at all for that matter. Dealing with media that are not familiar with your policies and procedures can be a difficult task, especially in a situation as sensitive as an unexpected death.

The Phillies also handled the death of long-time team broadcaster Harry Kalas in a professional and respectful manner. As for the decision to play or not to play, the Phillies understood this situation was slightly different than what the Angles had to deal with last week. It’s sad when anyone passes away, but Kalas being 73 years-old makes it more of a celebration of a life well lived. The Phillies knew Kalas was a lifelong baseball man and would have wanted the team to play.

Once the decision was made the organization did a phenomenal job of of protecting their current players, allowing them to focus on their thoughts and the game at hand. The Phillies instead leaned on former players to fulfill media requests. They collected quotes from Phillie legends to distribute to the media and had the face of the franchise, Mike Schmidt, do a call-in interview to ESPN minutes after hearing the news.

Under the most difficult situations, the Angels and Phillies came through in a first-class manner. Kudos to the PR teams and decision makers of both organizations.

LeBron James is averaging just 1.72 fouls per game this season

I came across a very interesting article on the Chicago Bulls website by well known basketball columnist Sam Smith. Smith uses some very telling stats to investigate the star treatment that LeBron James receives from officials. It’s a must read and Smith brings to light some statistics that will make the NBA’s league office cringe. Smith writes:

“James is averaging 1.72 fouls per game in an average of 37.9 minutes per game. James hasn’t even been in foul trouble one game this season. He never has had more than four fouls called on him in a game, and since March 1 is being called for fewer than 1.3 fouls per game.

In 12 of the 20 games since then, James has been called for one or zero fouls in a game. James had a stretch of five straight games to conclude March averaging 36.8 minutes per game without being called for one foul. Not one in five games! In the last nine games, James has been called for three personal fouls. It’s really amazing given the involvement James has in the action of the game.”

Smith’s statistics are staggering, 5 games without a single foul called? That’s incredible for a player as aggressive as James. Now, I’m not one of those conspiracy theorists that thinks David Stern is sitting in a room ordering referees to make sure the Cavs and Lakers end up in the finals. That does not happen. But, the NBA has been accused of referees providing star treatment for years, and coming off the heals of the Tim Donaghy scandal, they need to address the issue.

Stern has often denied conspiracy theories involving referees, and most likely he’s being honest, but this is now a perception/PR issue. Whether there is a conspiracy theory or not, whether players like James, Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant get star treatment or not, the fact is that fans believe something isn’t right. Many in the media believe this as well.

Instead of consistent denials, Stern and the NBA need to address the issue head on, especially with the playoffs quickly approaching where scrutiny of officials will only increase. The league is very protective of the access they grant media to their officials, but it’s time to pull the curtain back. It’s time for transparency. Many thought this would happen following the Donaghy fiasco, but it hasn’t.

To my knowledge the NBA doesn’t employ a PR person specifically dedicated to the referees, but it’s definitely time for that. This position could work exclusively with referees and allow a certain level of monitored access following controversial, or all games or that matter. It isn’t a myth that NBA refs watch each and every game to critique themselves. Stern is not blowing smoke when he says the NBA critiques their refs diligently. So, why hide the critique?

I understand there has to be some protection, but it’s time to let media and fans see what goes on behind the scenes. Let media and fans see how assignments are handed out for playoff games. Bring TV cameras into the referees room following games to see them reviewing questionable calls. Let media and fans see how the league office grades the officials. Although, I’d recommend using a network that doesn’t pay the league billions of dollars for broadcasting rights.

The bottom line is that those LeBron James foul stats are incredible and undeniable, and the league has a severe credibility issue on this topic that they need to address. I love pretty much all sports, but I’m definitely an NBA guy and have been a huge fan nearly my entire life, so I really want to see the league address this issue and put it to bed for good. For the sake of the league, the officials and the fans.

It looks like Tiger Woods is back folks. Sunday he turned in another vintage performance. Tiger sank a birdie putt in dramatic fashion on 18 to win The Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, setting up another great storyline for the upcoming Masters.

The big news coming off Tigers first win since his injury were the TV ratings. In a great post on Chicagoland Golf Blog, they write that Bay Hill’s final round scored the highest rating of any golf tournament since last years US Open, the last tournament Tiger played in before taking time off for knee surgery. That means Bay Hill had more viewers than last years British Open and PGA Championship, both major tournaments.

This led to an interesting conversation on Twitter Tuesday spurred by Christian Megliola, SVP at Regan Communications in Boston. The conversation discussed what the PGA Tour needs to do to prepare for the end of the Tiger era, because one thing we’ve learned over the last 8 months is that the PGA Tour is Tiger Woods. Ratings for the tour plunge when Tiger is not involved.

It seems odd to discuss the end of the Tiger era, he’s still just 33 years-old. Jack Nicklaus won The Masters at 46, and there’s no question that Tiger has the strength and conditioning to have that type of longevity. But, the PGA has a real problem on their hands with the public’s viewing tendencies when Tiger isn’t involved, and they need to begin preparing for that now.

I’m not suggesting that they should begin downplaying Tiger, of course you need to capitalize on his greatness and popularity while it’s there, but the PGA should be using tournaments that Tiger skips as a testing ground for post-Tiger plans. As Megliola said in a tweet,”They need to begin thinking about it at the highest levels.”

The PGA does not want to fall into the same “next Jordan” trap that hurt the NBA after Michael Jordan retired. We had Grant Hill, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, Kobe Bryant even Harold Miner, and marketing efforts went to compare each to Jordan. Only Kobe came close, but the “next Jordan” talk nearly crushed the league as no player could live up to that scrutiny.

The NBA finally came out of the haze when new, original, stars came on the scene, with original rivalries, not copycats. You can’t redo Magic-Bird, you can’t redo MJ. The NBA began to focus marketing on LeBron, Wade, Melo, D-12 (I won’t call him Superman a) he gave the nickname to himself and b) he has to win something to get that name, but I digress) and CP3. Young stars with marketable personalities, but efforts weren’t used to turn them into Jordan clones.

The PGA needs to begin cultivating new fresh players while they have the wiggle room. They can’t afford to wait until Tiger is gone, and not every player has the personality or composure of MJ, Tiger or LeBron, so it could take time.

The media will be looking for the next Tiger, but the PGA will need to resist. They need to look for new, marketable personalities. Test new and different stars. Not Tiger copycats. Maybe it’s a rivalry, that’s worked for the NBA and NHL (Crosby and Ovechkin). But, falling into the “next Tiger” trap could crush the PGA as we know it.

Curt Schilling announced his retirement Monday on his blog 38pitches.com

Here we go again, another post on the ever growing trend of social media in sports, but the fact is it’s undeniable at this point. We’ve already covered the Philadelphia Eagles Facebook issue and the Charlie Villanueva halftime Tweet. Monday we saw even more evidence that social media is taking sports by storm when Curt Schilling announced his retirement from baseball on his blog. That’s right, not an arranged press conference, but on his blog! Could you imagine the firestorm this would have caused five or even two years ago?

Schilling will still hold a tear-jerker press availability or at least make the interview rounds, but the influx of athletes using social media to break their own news brings up numerous issues. Joe Favorito at Sports PR & Marketing Roundup has some great info on how athletes can use their blogs not only craft the message, but to capatilize on advertising dollars. By announcing such news on a radio show for example, the stations advertisers win, but by doing so on their own blog the athlete is driving audiences through clicks to their own advertisers.

This new age messaging also begs the question, how can team PR people deal with this type of interaction from their athletes? How can it be ensured that the correct message gets out, or even more importantly, that the wrong one doesn’t? What can be done to make sure a team is aware of what players are doing online?

It can be uncharted territory for a team because there are distinct differences between interviews and appearances set up by the team and what an athlete does in terms of personal branding on their own time. Team reps do their best to maintain relationships with player agents and management, but their personal branding is often done without notifying team officials.

There are action items that team PR people can utilize to stay ahead of the game and avoid suprises. Every PR person should be engaging in social media, whether it be corporate or personal accounts. Remaining up-to-date on the latest online trends requires participating in the conversation. Being one step behind ensures never being able to keep up with where athletes are sharing information.

A little more obvious is “following”, “friending” and “becoming a fan” of your athletes social media pages, and consistently checking them, and their personal websites, for updates. Being surprised by a reporters question about something one of your players posted online can only compound the situation, plus by checking for their updates you might find some personal or community information that would be worth pitching to the media.

Finally, most companies these days are beginning to adopt social media rules for employees, IBM has one of the best employee social media policies. Sports teams should follow a similar model, although a few tweaks might be needed due to the nature of working with contract athletes as opposed to employees. The main idea stays the same though, just as media training is provided to players, so should training for players regarding social media activities.

The key is to remain in the loop on players personal activities in an effort to not be caught off-guard when something is posted that isn’t in-line with team policy.

Update: Former Philadelphia Eagles employee Dan Leone will be chatting on espn.com at 3:00pm EST on Thursday, March 12.

Former Philadelphia Eagles employee Dan Leone grew up just down the street from Veterans Stadium, and has been a die-hard fan his entire life. When the Eagles built Lincoln Financial Field Leone figured he’d fill out an application and see if he could land a gig with his favorite team.

Fast forward 6 years and Leone is the west gate chief on game days, that is up until last week when the team let 13-year veteran, and fan-favorite Brian Dawkins sign with the Denver Broncos. What does Dawkins have to do with this? Well, Leone, like many Eagles fans, was furious Dawkins was leaving and posted on his Facebook page, “Dan is [expletive] devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver…Damn Eagles R Retarded!!”

The Eagles subsequently fired Leone. Should Leone have better judgment, yes. Was his Facebook status update inappropriate for an employee? Of course. But, the Eagles going as far as firing him brings up a host of questions from a PR and really a business perspective in general.

Christy Hammond at Sportsprblog.com brings up a great point. In this day and age every company should supply their employees with social media policies. Many companies are behind the curve on this, but as sites like Facebook and especially Twitter are exploding, more and more people are sharing their thoughts on-line, and companies need to decide what is and isn’t acceptable. That also means employees need to be extra vigilant in what they’re posting.

But, that doesn’t mean that this unfortunate situation rests solely on Leone’s shoulders. The Eagles took a lapse in judgment from an employee and turned it into PR nightmare. I don’t know how many “Facebook friends” Leone has, but usually it’s in the range of 100-200. So the Eagles fired a passionate employee over an inappropriate post that maybe 200 people saw.

In turn they ensured millions more now know about the comment. The story, and Leone’s comment, have now been all over the Philadelphia media, ESPN and almost every major sports media outlet across the country.

An even larger issue is whether firing an employee over a Facebook post is a wise PR move considering the current economic conditions. People are losing jobs left and right, and Leone was just fired for his Facebook status! Will the Eagles see any backlash for being insensitive during these time? Maybe something they should have thought about before pulling the trigger on this decision.

So, my question to you, did the Eagles make a mountain out of a mole hill? And, do companies in the current economic climate need to be more careful from a PR perspective for the reasons they let employees go?

Ah yes, March Madness is upon us! One of my favorite times of the year, but along with exciting college basketball, we can certainly expect a heavy dose of ‘should college athletes get paid’ commentary. This is always a hot topic with strong opinions from those in sports and academics, and I came across an interesting article in the Indianapolis Star from long-time columnist Bob Kravitz on this exact topic.

His basic premise is ‘lets make college sports a real minor league.’ His theory is that a scholarship athlete should have a choice, accept the scholarship and become a student-athlete, or turn down the scholarship and get paid $25,000 per year by the college, with no academic obligations. He argues that most likely only 3-4 athletes a year, between football and basketball, would accept the pay.

Kravitz does raise some interesting questions, and his is one of the more creative ideas that I’ve heard on this topic, but also one of the most unrealistic. It would be a PR disaster for the NCAA to announce they’re going to pay college athletes, but those athletes wouldn’t have to remain eligible or attend a single class for that matter. This would especially be an issue for public universities funded by the tax-payer.

I honestly can’t think of a single way that the NCAA could justify this to the public, and I’m unsure how Kravitz can pass this as a plausible solution. There’s no doubt that the NCAA and their member institutions are making millions, even billions, from football and basketball, but turning them into a quasi minor league is not the solution.

Basketball is really the sport with the issue, since football players can’t leave for the NFL until they’re three years removed from high school. I’m not for college athletes getting paid, I’ve always thought the scholarship was payment enough, but the NBA and NCAA need to figure something out. The 1 and done system has some serious flaws. The 1 and done basketball player literally has no incentive to attend class, especially not in the second semester.

I think the road we’re headed down is the NBA turning the NBDL into a true minor league, with each team having the their own affiliate. The NBA would then go back to allowing players to jump directly from high school, but any athlete choosing the NCAA would be required to stay somewhere between 2-3 years.

According to “point 3″ of the Weekend Dime on espn.com last weekend, the NBA is already in the process of moving the NBDL to a more baseball-style minor league system. The issue is that some NBA teams are willing to absorb the cost of basketball operations for their affiliate, but not the business costs. This may have to wait for the economy to turn before becoming a viable solution.

But, I think that is the best solution for the NBA, NCAA and preserving the term “student-athlete”, but I’m interested to hear others opinions/ideas on this. Do you think Kravitz has a plan here? Do you have another solution?