Taking the Public Out of PR

By: Sean | February 25th, 2008

It’s been awhile since I was a day-to-day reporter – since, like, the mid-90s. So my experience with sports franchises all comes before that fateful day in 2001 which, as we all know, Changed Everything.

Apparently, one of the things it changed was the long-term goals of a sports franchise. In the old days, franchises had whole departments dedicated to letting the people on the outside (i.e., potential paying customers) know virtually everything happening in the organization.

Sure, there were areas in shadow – domestic problems, for example, were not treated as routine PR fodder. But the idea of the public relations office was, at that point, to inform and hopefully involve the public, thereby building the team as a brand in the minds of the people in the community and getting those people to ‘consume’ the ‘product.’

Now, apparently, we are in a whole new age. 9/11 changed everything. Brownie did a heckuva job. And the job of a public relations department, apparently, is to blunder away every precious chance at decent free publicity.

I’ll summarize, for those too weary to navigate away – Luis Arroyave flew down to Florida on the Trib’s dime to do a feature on Blanco before the Fire headed out to Mexico for the next stage of training camp. Blanco, or someone in the organization, decided that the interview wasn’t going to happen … so it didn’t.

Now Arroyave’s editor – who probably had to be persuaded to foot the bill for a reporter, however briefly, at a preseason soccer camp – is saying, ‘Screw them.’ Which means that, the next time Luis tries to sell covering something outside the Cubs/Sox/Bulls/Bears, this editor is going roll his eyes and remind him of the time Mr. White couldn’t be bothered.

I’m sure there’s two sides to this story, and I’d love to hear the Fire’s take. I’d love to hear there was a substantial reason here, and not just bumbling by a PR department content to sell tickets on Blanco’s name.

Unfortunately, that seems unlikely, since any such story would have to pass through the Fire public relations department. It’s a brave new world. Maybe someday someone will explain it to me.

Postscript: As much as it pains me to admit it, the Burninators in Dallas have the goods when it comes to the PR department. Check out the video compilation they released about new signing Andre Rocha.