Crisis management agency for sports. How often do we see that one of our favourite sporting athletes has fallen victim to
When sporting personalities get into these ‘NSFW’ situations; it can be detrimental to their careers and to the club they play for. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out, that in these moments of poor judgement; time is of the essence for a sports crisis management agency to take back control.
Our expert team have compiled a list of some of the best actions to take when handling your sports PR crisis management.
Take responsibility
The worst thing you can do when a crisis hits is to try to cover up what has happened. There are correct ways of taking responsibility that can defuse the situation as quickly as it starts. Sports clubs are built on trust from the fans. Lying to them or leaving them questioning their clubs’ morals can have lasting damage
Proactive
There are many ways to be proactive in a crisis, one great approach is to have the athletes build a likeable personal brand well before any opportunity of corruption can reach them. Think about it this way, how many times has David Beckham supposedly slept with the nanny or the cleaner? Why is it most people brush the stories off as lies almost straight away? He has built an incredible transparent yet strong personal brand that the stories don’t fit. The best route to take if the stories do appear to be real is to be proactive; be accountable and be transparent.
Outsource to a professional sports crisis management agency
When your business is centred around human performance, there are always bound to be the odd crisis that comes up due to human nature and error. Finding the correct way to deal with these situations can be extremely difficult.
By working with a sports crisis management agency; you are hiring a professional team with experience to guide the athlete and club through the storm, in the most diplomatic and least damaging way possible.
Over the years many established sports brands have been crippled due to negative Public Relations. Further to the above, what else can you do to ensure that if anything negative is ever published about you, you can weather the storm?
Most business and marketing strategies will have a section dedicated to any potential risk to the company. Whether it be unforeseeable or the obvious; it is important to acknowledge all possible crises and have a firm action plan in place if the worst was to happen. This should include appointing someone to be at the forefront of any press questioning.
This may seem like reactive crisis management, however, by ensuring procedures are in place should something go wrong, is a good proactive approach.
Hold Q & A’s
With social media turning into a rumour mill for most people; it would be a good idea to put all the rumours to bed. Maybe you are building a development near a quiet village and residents are up in arms about the added pollution and traffic. By inviting local residents to a question and answering talk at their local village hall, you have the opportunity to give the residents the facts, rather than what they have heard from their neighbour.
Build positive PR
Arguably one of the best ways to proactively combat bad press is to beat them to the punch; by investing in a sports PR agency to create a positive image around your company; you will be building trust with the public resulting in less of a negative reaction should a crisis occur. If people have read about all the good your company is going to bring to the local community, you would have already started to combat any negative press well ahead of time and had the chance to lay down your brand message to the public.
If you would like to know more about how VerriBerri can build you a crisis management plan then contact our professional PR department today on 01376 386 850.
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