Category: Communication & Fundraising in Sport

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Communication & Fundraising in Sport

The Revolution will be televised

Two Camera Operators Standing in a Green Metal Stage during Daytime (Pixabay via Pexels)

“Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” Al Michaels uttered those words in the closing seconds of the United States hockey team’s stunning 4-3 victory over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympic semifinals in Lake Placid, N.Y. It was an indelible moment for American sport, one Sports Illustrated tapped as the greatest of the twentieth century. It also did not air on live television in the host nation (Healy, 2020).

Wait, what? An iconic game that became the basis for a Disney movie and is still talked about forty years later and they didn’t carry it live? Keep in mind that digital capabilities weren’t in place in 1980 so ABC, the rightsholder for the Olympics at the time, could get away with it. Today, with smartphone updates and social media posts, preventing spoilers is next to impossible.

We have come a long way from the days when what was then the Big Three of ABC, CBS, and NBC dominated the sports broadcasting landscape. Even the advent of ESPN plus MLB and NBA action on superstations like TBS and WGN seem like a relic of days long gone. Now we have leagues with networks of their own to promote the games they oversee (Rein, Kotler, & Shields, 2007). The major broadcast networks themselves have sports-specific channels on cable and satellite: CBS Sports Network, NBC Sports Network, FS1 for Fox, while ABC is aligned with ESPN. The Internet is a huge part of the sports ecosystem with fan-driven websites like Barstool and Bleacher Report (B. Siguenza, personal communication, December 24, 2017). Finally, technology has allowed us to stream live sports to laptops and smartphones.

As I wrote in a 2017 personal communication, it’s hard to imagine sports media evolving any more than it already has, though the possibility always exists. Maybe someday we’ll be able to see holographic action a la Star Wars. But for right now, I’m quite content with watching games via one of the many apps on my phone or listening to SiriusXM when I can’t be in front of a TV.

References

Healy, J. (2020, February 21). The 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’ U.S. team: 5 interesting facts. Retrieved from https://www.radio.com/sports/nhl/gallery/the-1980-miracle-on-ice-u-s-team-5-interesting-facts

Rein, I., Kotler, P., & Shields, B. (2007, January-February). The future of sports media. The Futurist, 40-43.

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Communication & Fundraising in Sport

Trouble in Iowa City

This week’s class topic is about sports teams and crisis communication. And wouldn’t you know it? A public relations crisis is exactly what’s brewing now with a sports team twenty-five miles down the road from me. To fill you in, former members of the University of Iowa football team who are of the African-American race recently took to social media to share instances of being treated differently within the program because of the color of their skin. Chris Doyle, the Hawkeyes’ longtime strength and conditioning coach, was named specifically as an aggressor in the accounts. This weekend, he was placed on administrative leave by the program, pending an investigation (Fornelli, 2020).

Here’s where we get to do a little role play: for this post, we must act as if we are part of the athletics department at Iowa and the information is just coming in. At the outset, we have to think like journalists and the general public and determine the points that will most likely need addressing. The first obvious question here would be, what is Hawkeye Football doing about the accusations levied by its former black players? Given the situation that the United States is currently in with regards to racial discrimination, minimizing the concerns would be a grave mistake. A crisis plan could then look something like this.

Situation: Former players say they were not treated respectfully during their time at Iowa.

Crisis Communication Plan:

  • We’ve already identified the situation, so the next step is to bring in the staff person in charge of crisis communication.
  • The administrator, as they’re called, will compile what is known about the situation then assemble the crisis communication team.
  • A conference will take place to determine the next steps and who will carry them out.
  • The response is planned (Special Olympics, n.d.).

External communications in the response should include a traditional press release to the media, a website post and e-mail to fans and donors, and social media content. Now the media and the public will have their own reaction to the response, which may be negative. Here’s how we would prepare for that.

Situation: Fans are unhappy with the response to the incident.

Crisis Communication Plan:

  • Administrators must decide whether the reaction warrants further intervention. If it does, the steps in the first situation should be implemented.
  • It may be necessary to conduct news conferences to provide additional developments on the situation, plus more external communication like e-mails. Only those employees authorized to speak on the matter should do so.
  • Decide whether visuals will be needed for communication purposes. The images must be of an appropriate nature.
  • Consider further initiatives that demonstrate the concerns of the community are being heard (University of South Florida, n.d.).

Last, we anticipate that a conclusion will eventually be reached on the future of Chris Doyle, one way or the other. Based on past experiences, this is how that will be handled.

Situation: Administration is ready to announce Chris Doyle’s status.

Crisis communication plan:

  • The crisis communication team will notify the media of an impromptu news conference, to be held at a specific time in a specific location. News organizations will carry the event live via traditional broadcast and web streaming.
  • The information will be sent in a news release to media plus shared with the general public through the athletics website, social media, and e-mail.
  • Hold a final meeting with the administration and crisis communication team to evaluate the methods used and revise as needed (University of South Florida, n.d.).

These are very basic–and interchangeable–steps for the University of Iowa to take, and they already have through the release of a statement from head coach Kirk Ferentz, posted below. Still, there will be much more to come on this in the days ahead.

Hawkeye Football on Twitter

References

Fornelli, T. (2020, June 7). Iowa strength coach Chris Doyle refutes allegations of negative experiences made by former players. Retrieved from https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/iowa-strength-coach-chris-doyle-refutes-allegations-of-negative-experiences-made-by-former-players/

Special Olympics. (n.d.). Crisis communications. [PDF File]. Retrieved from http://media.specialolympics.org/soi/files/resources/Communications/Guides/CrisisCommunicationPlan.pdf

University of South Florida. (n.d.). Crisis communications. [PDF File]. Retrieved from https://www.usf.edu/pdfs/Crisis-Communication-Plan.pdf

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Communication & Fundraising in Sport

College Sports: A non-profit organization

The Ohio State Buckeyes face off against the Clemson Tigers in the 2019 Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. (Brian Siguenza)

Last week I mentioned my work with a nonprofit agency in the city I’ve called home for thirty years. You may recall that to attain nonprofit status, an organization must provide something of benefit to the community it serves (Kenton, 2020). My employer, for example, focuses on meals to homebound seniors, financial literacy, and transportation in parts of town where the bus is inaccessible.

It seems like a stretch to compare the efforts of my agency to a major sports organization that holds contests in front of thousands of fans plus the millions watching on television. Yet it might surprise you that like us, the NCAA and the athletic programs that make up its membership are considered not-for-profit organizations. As an expert in antitrust law tells Barnhouse (2018), whereas most nonprofits emphasize the mission over money, the mission in collegiate athletics is to make money.

Why is that? As it turns out, many of the programs in the major football conferences, otherwise known as “Power Five,” spend more money than they bring in. Hobson & Rich (2015) analyzed the data of schools in these conferences for the Washington Post and found that more than half of the programs with available data operated at a loss in 2014. This includes big names like Auburn, Clemson, Michigan State, and UCLA. The review into program finances may explain the concern that many administrators who oversee the program expressed to McMurphy (2020) about whether there would be a football season in the wake of COVID-19. As one anonymous director said, “Quite simply, it would be devastating” (para. 4).

What’s more, the relationship between on-field success and general fundraising dollars is unclear. Some researchers have found that donations to a university can be predicated upon superior athletic performance, while other researchers do not believe that such a link exists (Staurowsky, n.d.; King, Sexton, & Rhatigan, 2010). If the latter group is to be believed, it can thus be implied that colleges would do just as well in the fundraising department without sports teams as they do with.

The very existence of sports at the collegiate level provides a challenge for those who raise money for the institution because it puts the school in competition with itself for scarce, valuable resources. However, this can be solved by making athletic giving part of the general university foundation (King, Sexton, & Rhatigan, 2010). The University of Iowa, where I received my undergraduate degree, structured its foundation so that alumni and other contributors can select from several categories that they wish for their donation to go. It could be used for athletics, the hospital, or a specific college (The University of Iowa Center for Advancement, n.d.).

Not only has COVID-19 put the college football season in jeopardy, but it has also made fundraising very difficult as events involving a large number of people cannot yet be held. Charitable giving had been in decline before the pandemic hit (Safo, 2019). Now the athletic and academic side of schools aren’t just competing with each other, but numerous nonprofits who are also feeling the effects. And that’s a matchup you won’t see in primetime on ESPN.

References

Barnhouse, W. (2018, June 4). Non-profit colleges bringing in ‘Fortune 500’ revenues through athletics. Retrieved from https://globalsportmatters.com/business/2018/06/04/colleges-bringing-fortune-500-revenues-athletics/

Hobson, W., & Rich, S. (2015, November 23). Playing in the red. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/running-up-the-bills/

Kenton, W. (2020, April 29). Nonprofit organization (NPO). Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/non-profitorganization.asp

King, E.H., Sexton, E.L., & Rhatigan, J.J. (2010, Spring). Balancing fundraising in academic programs and intercollegiate athletics. New Directions for Higher Education, 2010(149), 65-71. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.382

McMurphy, B. (2020, March 31). Will there be college football in 2020? Athletic directors weigh in. Retrieved from https://watchstadium.com/will-there-be-college-football-in-2020-athletic-directors-weigh-in-03-30-2020/

Safo, N. (2019, December 2). Charities worry giving will fall for a second straight year. Retrieved from https://www.marketplace.org/2019/12/02/charities-worry-giving-will-fall-for-a-second-straight-year/

Staurowsky, E.J. (n.d.). The relationship between athletics and higher education fund raising: The myths far outweigh the facts [PDF File]. Ithaca, NY: Ithaca College. Retrieved from http://priorities.weebly.com/uploads/8/8/6/0/8860813/athletics_and_fundraising.pdf

The University of Iowa Center for Advancement. (n.d.). Give to Iowa. Retrieved from https://donate.givetoiowa.org/s/1773/giving/19/home.aspx?sid=1773&gid=2&pgid=627&tag=agn&tab=tab1

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Communication & Fundraising in Sport

Discussing Donor Databases

Hopefully you have noticed by now that I am quite well-versed in the world of sport and communications. Now I would like to show you my expertise in another subject: fundraising. My day job is with a 501(c)3 non-profit organization here in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The term non-profit is a bit of a misnomer because it suggests that the organization does not exist to make money. It is true that the purpose is more about providing a service that benefits the residents of a particular community (Kenton, 2020). However, the organization still needs to have the appropriate financial resources in order to do so.

That’s where donors come in. The generosity of corporations and individuals alike allow organizations like ours to ensure that we can meet the needs of our population. We want to maintain that connection to the people who have contributed to us, so we keep records using an online database. There are several options available for tracking donor data but for the sake of simplicity, I will tell you about the two systems that I have used: Raiser’s Edge 7 by Blackbaud and Little Green Light (LGL).

The Raiser’s Edge software we used was installed on the network of our computers. It was simple enough to manually input contact information on a constituent and any donation they made. Importing records could be a challenge though, as well as creating exports if we wanted to look at, say, gifts that have been made in the current fiscal year. On the other hand, I can not only import and export records in a matter of minutes on LGL, but I can also track upcoming grants with it as well.

Now I was part of the decision-making process to switch over to LGL, which is why I’m so partial to it. Ultimately, the software that a fundraiser chooses has to fit the capacity of his or her program, both from a functional and economical perspective. In that sense, I would recommend reaching out to other non-profit agencies in your area to get a feel for what software works best for them.

Reference

Kenton, W. (2020, April 29). Nonprofit organization (NPO). Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/non-profitorganization.asp

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Communication & Fundraising in Sport

No joy in London as MLB cancels its UK series

View of the British Parliament from the London Eye taken July 2, 2016. (Brian Siguenza)
London has played host to a Major League Baseball series.

There’s something fascinating about North American sports leagues taking their game to international markets. I remember being in the UK when the NFL held a regular-season contest in London. While I was not in Wembley Stadium when the Chargers took on the Saints, I watched on the BBC, which itself was very different from the American broadcasts I’m used to.

Britain’s capital has become a popular spot for staging North American sports. Last year, the Yankees and Red Sox brought their storied rivalry across the pond. This year was to be a Midwestern matchup between the Cubs and Cardinals before Major League Baseball scuttled those plans on account of the coronavirus (Pavitt, 2020).

A Google search on the MLB London Series offers several stories from US sources like USA Today, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, and ESPN. The first British source does not appear until the second page of the results, from the Evening Standard, the newspaper hawked through the streets of London at the end of the workday. The Evening Standard story, written by Flood (2020), is to-the-point regarding the cancellation of the series. It mentions the previous year’s affair along with other major events that will not run during the summer, including the Olympics and Wimbledon.

The article from CBS Sports, on the other hand, is much more in-depth about the status of the MLB season in general. Axisa (2020) reports that games in Puerto Rico and Mexico City were also axed and that those events plus London could potentially be rescheduled for one year later. Meanwhile, on the chance the season started before June 13, the Cubs and Cardinals would meet at Busch Stadium, as St. Louis had given up those home games.

Compared to soccer and cricket, baseball simply is not a priority in Great Britain. Says Katz (2019), “baseball has not developed a mass following–in part, perhaps, because it seems impenetrable to people who didn’t grow up with the sport. It appears that soccer fans find baseball too slow and cricket fans find it too fast” (para. 6). As media works to cover items of interest to as many people as possible, the British audience may not be keen to hear too many details about what happens on the baseball diamond. There is also the matter of time–most baseball games anymore are played in the evening in the US and Canada, which is the middle of the night for Britons. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t spend the overnight hours following a sport when I have to be to work at eight a.m., save for perhaps the playoffs.

Still, baseball has its share of fans in the UK and even enjoyed demand from time to time, including last year when the Yankees and Red Sox sold-out London Stadium (Katz, 2019; Flood, 2020). Hopefully, MLB will get another chance to play games there and maybe I can attend then.

References

Axisa, M. (2020, April 1). Coronavirus: MLB cancels 2020 London Series between Cardinals and Cubs scheduled in June. Retrieved from https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/coronavirus-mlb-cancels-2020-london-series-between-cardinals-and-cubs-scheduled-in-june/

Flood, G. (2020, April 1). MLB London series 2020 between Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals cancelled due to coronavirus. Evening Standard. Retrieved from https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/mlb-london-series-2020-cancelled-coronavirus-a4404306.html

Katz, G. (2019, June 28). British baseball strictly minor league despite proud history. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/british-baseball-off-proud-history-64014484

Pavitt, M. (2020, April 2). MLB London Series cancelled amid coronavirus crisis. Retrieved from https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1092737/mlb-london-series-cancelled-coronavirus

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Communication & Fundraising in Sport

Sports and Social Media: A Brief History

Stock photo of smartphone icons. (Pixabay via Pexels)
Stock image of smartphone icons. (Pixabay via Pexels)

No one could have guessed when ESPN first released the trailer for The Last Dance that the documentary series on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls dynasty of the 1990s would become the closest thing to sports that fans could consume during a battle over when, and if, any competition could safely resume during the coronavirus pandemic. The results have been championship-caliber for ESPN, with six million viewers for each episode and a great deal of buzz on social media (Reames, 2020).

Deseret News on Twitter
105.7 The Fan on Twitter

Websites like Twitter and Facebook are now as much a part of the sporting experience as collegiate marching bands and sideline reporters. According to Narrelle Harris (n.d.) of LaTrobe University, social media has made it easier for athletes, fans, and organizations alike to connect like never before. Harris writes, “Spectators are no longer simply watching sport, and fans can often get news, insights, and commentary straight from the source” (para. 1).

To understand how we got here, Newman, Peck, Harris, & Wilhide (2013) take us back to where it started. They explain that fans previously had limited options for receiving sports content: there was the daily newspaper or weekly magazines like Sports Illustrated, the radio, and television. And the messaging was one-way, making it easier for the sender to control the narrative. That changed around the mid-1990s with the rise of the World Wide Web and services like AOL, giving users more power to send feedback of their own. This gave way to the debut of MySpace and Facebook approximately ten years later, sites with profiles users could create themselves and invite others to be part of.

Social media in its nascence focused on individuals. It wasn’t until the introduction of Twitter that the concept of using these digital platforms to market to the public began to take off. You can now find businesses around the world promoting themselves on today’s most popular social sites, including those in the sports industry that use the services to keep consumers abreast of what’s happening in a major area of interest (Newman, Peck, Harris, & Wilhide, 2013). With sports at a standstill right now, organizations have had to get creative in entertaining the masses. One popular tactic has been showcasing historic games like this friendly soccer match between the Americans and Germany.

U.S. Soccer MNT on Twitter

References

Harris, N. (n.d.). The impact of social and digital media on sport. Retrieved from https://www.latrobe.edu.au/nest/the-impact-of-social-and-digital-media-on-sport/

Newman, T., Peck, J.F., Harris, C., & Wilhide, B. (2013). Social media in sport marketing. Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway, Publishers, Inc.

Reames, M. (2020, May 10). Nike and Jordan logos appear over 100 times in a single episode of The Last Dance. Adweek. Retrieved from https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/nike-and-jordan-logos-appeared-over-100-times-in-one-episode-of-the-last-dance/