Posts Tagged ‘Sponsors’

Crisis Management

Monday, March 9th, 2009

In light of the latest Rugby League drama surrounding Brett Stewart and Anthony Watmough let’s look at crisis management for athlete managers. These are just some of the key points in my experience.

  • Know your strategy. Brainstorm worst case scenarios. Then when the crisis breaks, you immediately know the steps you should be taking. This is about knowing people’s roles in a crisis. Who will be the media spokesperson, who will draft the media release, what are the processes to inform sponsors etc.
  • Inform key stakeholders. When a crisis breaks, consult the athlete’s lawyer (if it’s a legal matter) and then the sporting association or club. Clubs have a duty to know the full details and protect their sponsors and will often take over the management of the crisis – which saves you being the public face of the crisis (never a good look for a sports manager).
  • Be the first to know. Make sure that you are the first person your client contacts after any controversy. Get all the facts on the table. If you are the first to know, then you get a chance to break the news. This is not always possible, but if YOU break the news, then YOU get to control the message, which leads me to…..
  • Don’t ignore the crisis, or sweep it under the carpet. Always assume the crisis is bigger than what it is because in the eyes of the media it often is. The media will always find out eventually and then you’ll have two crises – the actual crisis and the way you’ve handled it.
  • Legal issues are not an excuse to run and hide. You have an obligation to publicly address the issue. It’s only the CONTENT of your public address that needs to be managed carefully. If you’re client is unable to comment due to a legal investigation then say so. Which brings me to…
  • Make sure everyone is briefed. If the media can’t get comment from the source they will go to a family member, former coach, current sponsors etc. So you need to brief all these people that the appointed ‘Spokesperson’ is the contact and any enquiries should be directed to that person.
  • Don’t blame the media for the trouble your client is in. This never achieves anything.
  • Don’t speculate in the media. Stick to the facts if there is an investigation going on. For example, don’t answer questions about possible consequences if your client is found guilty. This only adds more drama to the story.

It will be interesting to watch how the Sea Eagles manage the media as more details come to light over the coming week.

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Twitter

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

twitter-birdMore and more celebrities are starting to take advantage of the social networking site Twitter. For those who don’t understand the platform watch this video or read this text. Now why should an athlete be on Twitter?

Firstly, let’s look at one of the basic reasons why brands sponsor athlete’s. Athlete’s help put a face and personality to a product or service, and that human element helps the brand CONNECT with their target market. Brands try to achieve this connection by way of athlete appearances, consumer promotions and above the line advertising etc. These are all great, but are often expensive and sometimes a scatter gun approach to actually REACHING key customers.

So how does Twitter reach key customers? To give you a rough example of the power of Twitter, let’s say you’re selling a product and want to make 2,000 sales. Using your ambassador you decide to put an ad in the sports section of the paper (hoping it hits some of your target market), it costs you $30,000. A small percentage of your target market reads the paper, an even smaller percentage see your ad, and a smaller percentage actually take action. You make the 2,000 sales but it cost you $30,000. Now, just imagine your ambassador has 10,000 followers on Twitter, but these aren’t any ordinary people, they are fans who are INTERESTED and PASSIONATE about your ambassador. The ambassador has built incredible trust with his/her followers through daily tweets about their lives. Now instead of spending $30,000 on a newspaper ad, you ask your ambassador to tweet about your product with a direct link to a page that allows consumers to purchase that product. How many of these passionate followers do you think will click on the link? A bloody big percentage and all of a sudden they are at the check out counter. You easily get 2,000 sales (probably more) and it cost you nothing.

Twitter isn’t for everyone, but for those athletes that want to better connect with their fans and add value to their sponsors then I don’t see a better platform.

Some quick rules. Please don’t use a PR person to Twitter on behalf of your athlete, fans see right through this which defeats the power of Twitter. What you put in is what you get out. And don’t let your athlete abuse the service by over promoting their sponsors, they need to interact first, then promote, then interact some more.

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Posted in Social Networking, Sponsorship | No Comments »

MEDIA SHY

Friday, February 27th, 2009

tv-camera-operator2

There are many coaches and athletes out there who are absolutely brilliant at what they do on the pitch but when it comes to media they don’t want to know about it. These people can be a real challenge for managers and sport administrators. The fact is that if you’re in a high profile sport that generates enormous income from broadcasters, advertisers, sponsors and fans and you are being rewarded appropriately because of the money that sport brings in then you have an obligation to the media, like it or not. The media aren’t always fair, they aren’t always kind and they may even have hidden agendas from time to time, but they are a crucial cog in the money making machine that sport is. No coverage = less interest from fans = less interest from sponsors = less advertising dollars = pay cut for you the athlete.

While I’m on the subject, it’s amazing how many sports stars shun the media when competing only to look for job opportunities in the media when they retire?? Everyone has parts of their job they don’t like, media can be one of those for athletes but that doesn’t mean you can ignore it. In future posts I will comment on the how to deal with it part.

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Posted in Media, Sponsorship | No Comments »