Posts Tagged ‘sport’

Today’s edition of the Sun features an exposé of Wayne Rooney’s recent night on the tiles as his team-mates “completed rigorous pre-season fitness tours”. It is a typically irked and excitable article, chipping away at the veneer of sporting heroism that has been liberally applied to Rooney and his sporting colleagues in the past.

The article is desperate to get people fulminating about spoilt football players in the wake of England’s World Cup flop, on the assumption that these football “legends” are heroes and idols for the nation’s kids who are betraying their legions of fans by going out and being normal. They are doing nothing of the sort. Read the rest of this entry »

Forty-eight hours can feel like an eternity when your brand is in the centrifugal force in the maelstrom of public ridicule. In poor old Robert Green’s case, the error he committed by fumbling a save and letting in a dismal equalising goal in the World Cup match against the USA will plague him for the rest of his life.

Still, at least Green is English, where all he faces is ridicule and crushing, sweaty disappointment. In 1994, Columbian footballer Andrés Escobar was murdered after scoring an own goal in the World Cup. If England fail to progress, Green is likely to be vilified by the myopic soccer tribe in full rhetorical flow and be verbally lumped in with paedophiles, murderers and rapists in bitter conversations down the pub.

This despite the fact that, post-match, Green fronted up his error and bravely faced the media, admitting to the gaffe whilst attempting to take control of the narrative. In PR terms, it was a flawless effort in damage limitation. But, reading the papers today, the media continue to sadistically throw salt onto his open wound. We need a scapegoat and Green is the man of the hour. Read the rest of this entry »

Top PR marks to Gary Lineker for withdrawing from writing his column for the Mail on Sunday in protest over their handling of the Lord Triesman story. Lineker has done the right thing by distancing himself as effectively as possible from the Mail on Sunday’s stance – even though they have offered him the opportunity to keep the column and still criticise them explicitly.

His departure, from an extremely well paid job, sends the clearest possible signal to the paper’s editorial – and to the paper’s readers – that he is serious when he says: “I think this story goes against the national interest because the country is behind the 2018 bid, in which a lot of people invested a hell of a lot of time.”

Gary Lineker has revealed himself as a British sporting hero once again, thanks to his actions. I wonder if the Mail on Sunday will run the next part of its story about Lord Triesman this coming weekend. Can they really allow themselves to be seen to be going against the national interest? I can’t wait to see…

In the second Improperganda podcast, Mark Borkowski talks to Todd Ant, one of America’s premier sports broadcasters.

The discussion delves beneath the surface of sporting reputation and looks at the similarities and differences in reaction to the misbehaviour of sports stars on either side of the Atlantic. The conversation takes in everyone from John Terry to Babe Ruth and begins by looking at efforts to educate trouble-making out of young American sports stars.

“Give a 22 year old man $1 million, alcohol, celebrity and a bit too much free time and trouble will find him. It’s just a fact of life. I don’t care who he is. It’s just a potentially highly volatile mix!” Dr. Johnny Benjamin

“I’m not a role model… Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” Charles Barkley

The Improperganda podcast is a weekly forensic inspection of the truths, untruths, half-truths, myths, histories and gossip that surround modern culture, celebrity, fame, brands and PR.

Each episode will feature an interview or discussion with someone with a unique perspective on the world, be they publicists, journalists, authors, artists or just interesting human beings with an inside track on the underside of the headlines or the digital hemisphere.

 

 Marks Podcast 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What a depressing week for lovers of football. What a sorry, sad, insane mess played out by fools and halfwits. Ordinarily, the focus would have been on the big game, Arsenal v. Chelsea. Instead, this weekend, our interest in the game will be for all the wrong reasons. So, instead, I have decided to focus on the American version of football, which reaches its colossal climax on Sunday. I hanker after the hype, showmanship and ballyhoo of the Super Bowl.

US and UK sport have always been different – from the amount of body armour the Americans wear to play what amounts to rugby to the way the world views the different sports on each side of the Atlantic. Whatever your view of American sport, however, there is no doubt they are well ahead of the game when it comes to using social media in cahoots with big sports events. Read the rest of this entry »

I was asked to comment on the fallout from Tiger Woods’s bad week in the press by the Guardian last week – the resulting article appears in today’s Media section and online under the headline In Need of a Tigerish Attorney. I took a critical look at the way he and his lawyer, Mark NeJame, are handling the story. Here’s an excerpt:

“Tiger Woods’s nasty bump on the head after his car’s tussle with a fire hydrant has rendered the golfer mostly speechless. It’s all very well that he’s admitted “transgressions” and muttered an apology, but at the heart of the press release he put out is a cry for silence and privacy. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the Orlando attorney Mark NeJame, who has made his name defending drug offenders and people accused of murder, is the man behind this strategy. The ‘Johnnie Cochran of Central Florida’ has thrown his weight behind the Tiger Woods brand at the formerly squeaky-clean golfer’s darkest hour.

“Attorneys are the new breed of tough image protector – PR spin technicians are losing out to hard-nosed lawyers. But will NeJame’s strategy help his client to regain his flawless veneer of celebrity? Woods’s ignominy is fast becoming one of 2009’s top trending topics and has exposed the media-shy golfer to the dark side of ‘improperganda’.”

To read the full article, click here.

I was also asked for my opinion on the Tiger Woods affair and whether or not he can rebuild his brand’s reputation by Channel 4 News – to read the article, click here.

The Independent on Sunday published an article of mine yesterday, looking at what could have happened to Thierry Henry had he confessed to handling the ball in the France v Republic of Ireland match last week. The What If? is a classic sci-fi and fantasy conceit borrowing the idea of a multiverse from quantum physics, seeing which way a life might have gone if one small choice had been different. There was, I’ll admit, a certain amount of pleasure to be had applying quantum metaphysics to the lives of footballers and the PR potentials of the changes. Here’s an extract…

“If quantum physics is to be believed, there is quite possibly an alternate Thierry Henry in a parallel universe who has just become a sporting god thanks to ‘fessing up to handling the ball. Heralded as one of the greatest publicity stunts of all time, it would nonetheless change the life of the footballer into that of the fairplay god, the one who rewrote the sporting commandments. Fifa would be shamed into rewarding honesty, not the reverse.”

To read the full article, click here.

As the former editor of the News of the World turned PR man for David Cameron, Andy Coulson’s appearance before the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee the other day was always likely to be difficult – this is a high-pressure enquiry into the phone hacking scandal.

His performance was a masterstroke, however – a blend of careful honesty and equally careful image management. Coulson came across as forthright and honest – and he looked relaxed in a suit that could easily have graced the pages of GQ. Importantly, he did not battle the MPs he was facing but was carefully compliant.

There’s no doubt that he knows not to make himself the story – he kept his personality in the background and presented the facts as he saw them. It was abundantly clear, from this appearance, that he has been a major influence on the Tory front bench and on David Cameron in particular. Watching him conducting himself told us much about how he is working with the Tories.

He was as impressive as Alastair Campbell used to be in the same role for Tony Blair, although he cuts a very different dash from Campbell. Where Campbell was more of a Nobby Stiles, Coulson comes across as something of a Cardinal Richelieu, albeit a Richelieu who is prepared to admit his mistakes, which is more than can be said for some MPs.

But would he rather be the PR man for a likely future Prime Minister or to have remained in the editor’s chair at the News of the World? He fell on his sword for the sake of the Murdoch empire in 2007 after the phone tapping scandal involving rogue agents, having carefully built a career in journalism. I would imagine that there’s still a sense of loss about that lurking in the carefully polished depths.

At a time when Sunday newspapers are under ever greater pressure to land scoops – whatever the method and consequence – I imagine Coulson’s safe with the Tories for now, especially since he handled himself so effectively under pressure in front of the Commons select committee and given that his media management of the Tories has, on the whole, been equally effective. He certainly proved he’s an asset to David Cameron in front of the select committee and despite calls for his resignation, I would suggest that he’s not likely to leave this job at present.

“So, what now for this latest dopey Olympian?” asked a headline in today’s Daily Mail, referring to American swimmer Michael Phelps’ bong-sucking faux pas. Phelps, who holds the record for the most gold medals won at a single Olympics (eight in Beijing) and the most ever golds won by an Olympian (fourteen), was photographed nursing a bong while out partying. He was not suspended over the issue as marijuana is not a performance-enhancing drug, but his PR machine tried their utmost to stop the story going public.

When you’ve been covered in Olympic glory and deified as a sporting god, your life as you know it stops. You enjoy the attention of sponsors and dignitaries and your brand stands for something. The hours of practice and dedication to your sport are vindicated and even the bullying you’ve received for not quite fitting in pales into insignificance because you are become a ‘special one’. You reap the fruits of the harvest. But you are no longer just a bloke on the street who can go about your daily life like almost everyone else can. Sooner or later your ‘behaviour’ becomes a point of media interest.

So Michael Phelps’ partying and bong-sucking is not just media intrusion, it’s actual news and a severe attack on the Olympian brand he has swum into. A person in Phelps’ position can’t expect their PR minders to be able to do deals on their behalf for every indiscretion; they are now headline news and something like this is always likely to slip through into the public arena. The lesson to be learned here is that, if you want to plunder your brand, you have to consider either living a rigorously monastic life or, in an attempt at normality, consider exploiting a bad boy image.

The pressures of success are often greater than the bitter taste of fame in the sporting arena; the monastic life is unlikely to suit Phelps, but the bad boy image is thoroughly unlikely to further his ability to take advantage of his Olympian fame. He’s drowning, whichever lane he chooses to swim in.