The Last Straw, Or Why I Stopped Viewing Sports Through Rose Colored Glasses And See Things Clearer

As a youngster the first thing I would do when returning from school was rush to the radio to hear what remained of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball games, with commentary by Red Barber and Connie Desmond. (In those days games were played under the sunlight instead of LED light fixtures.)

As soon as the game was over, I would read the sports pages of several New York City dailies, combing through the box scores along with the write-ups of yesterday’s baseball games.  Once a week I would receive The Sporting News and diligently read all the coverage of the minor leagues, trying to guess which players would soon be promoted to the big leagues, ignoring the fact that the owners of teams were allowing harmful products – alcoholic beverages and cigarettes – to be advertised on radio broadcasts of the games despite the fact that a large percentage of the audience were sports crazy teens.

Then when television came along, TV cameras would follow a carton of cigarettes as it glided down the screen from the announcer’s booth after a Dodger hit a home run with broadcaster Red Barber saying, if memory serves me correct, “It’s an Old Goldie.” Old Gold cigarettes were a sponsor of Dodger broadcasts. On New York Yankees broadcasts, Mel Allen would call a home run a “Balantine Blast.”  

Slowly over the years my attitude on how sports should be covered changed – even though during my early years as a sports writer for New York City dailies and wire services, my stories had to be about which players scored the most touchdowns, what was the turning point of a game and about the heroics of players. Negative articles about a player were a no-no. (I once had a negative story about how a high school football coach instructed his linemen to play dirty torn up by my editor who said, “We can’t use that. The league will get mad at us.” Today that story would probably be on page one of the sports section, or maybe even of the main section.)

Even when I became the sports marketing guru at two major PR agencies – Advance Public Relations, then a national agency, and then Burson-Marsteller, the international giant –  for a number of years I believed, or pretended to believe, that the sports business was different than other business and should not be covered as the big business it actually was.

But even when playing key roles and managing some of the most high profile national and international sports (and non-sports programs), I grew increasingly cynical of the machinations of the sports business and came to the conclusion that it should be covered like any other big business. (Full Disclosure: I had asked the managing editor of one news service if I could cover more important stories after I completed my military service obligations. At my suggestion, he agreed to send me to Washington to cover politics. But that wire service went bust while I was still on active military duty. A colleague of mine from the New York Herald Tribune introduced me to Arthur Cantor, the Broadways producer and owner of Advance Public Relations. Cantor was looking for someone who knew sports for a new major sports TV account. He hired me and I stayed there for 10 years until being recruited by Burson-Marsteller, where for almost 25 years I managed and played key roles in sports marketing and non-sports accounts.)

There were various reasons that I became more cynical each year about the sports business. They ranged from franchises moving to other locales that offered them a better tax deal; franchises that threatened cities that they would leave unless a new ballpark was built for them at tax payers expense; raising ticket prices that loyal fans could not afford, and, of course, the National Football League’s attempt to destroy a researchers career for exposing how repeated concussions can turn a player’s brain to mush, and Major League Baseball’s owners pretending that they didn’t know of players use of PEDS until Congressional hearings were convened on the subject.

But, for me, the final straws on how sports should be covered occurred over the last few years: Sports leagues teaming up with legalized book makers and permitting ads promoting gambling (and alcoholic drinks) from home on telecasts during hours when they could be seen by impressionable youngsters; the National Football League awarding its 2024 Super Bowl to Las Vegas, after saying for decades it would never permit a team or any game to be played there; the International Olympic Committee (IOC) insisting that its Tokyo games be played during the Covid-19  pandemic and seeing nothing wrong with permitting Russian and Belarusian  athletes from participating in next year’s Paris Olympics, and, of course, the IOC permitting its propaganda-rich game to be played in totalitarian countries, beginning in 1936 when both the Summer and Winter Olympics were staged in Nazi Germany.

I’m now a big fan of how the New York Times sports coverage has changed over the past few years, deemphasizing daily stories about hits, runs and errors and highlighting in-depth reporting on the cultural, business and political aspects of the sports industry. Also of the Wall Street Journal, although they have a much smaller sports section than the Times. I’m also sure that some other publications have also changed their coverage, but I can only write about the pubs that I personally see each day.

A few examples of how I believe sports should be covered: On February 20, 2022, the New York Times ran an article about how Chinese-Americans reacted to Eileen Gu’s decision to compete in the Olympics for China instead of the U.S. On February 25, the Times ran a full-page story on the first page of its sports section about a Swedish Olympic skating star Nils van der Poel, giving away his gold medal to protest Beijing’s human rights abuses.

On February 25, the Wall Street Journal ran two articles about the seemy side of sports. One, story, abut Phil Mickelson’s remarks about a new golf league financed by Saudi Arabia said, “In sports, we are in the grim age of sportswashing, in which athletes are used to steam press and sanitize the reputations of questionable stakeholders.” The other story was headlined, “Soccer Has Spent Years Befriending Russia. Now It Has A Problem.” The article told of how the international soccer authorities “have repeatedly welcomed the governments whose motivations go far beyond sports and pointed out, that along with the IOC, the UEFA and FIFA have awarded its events to countries that have checkered human rights issues. The UEFA is the The Champions League, an annual club football competition organized by the Union of European Football Associations.  FIFA describes itself as an international governing body of association football, futsal and beach soccer. 

In the February 28, 2022 Wall Street Journal, columnist Jason Gay wrote about the baseball negotiations in a column titled, “Baseball Blunders Away Its Spring.” Google it to see why the Journal’s limited sports section provides readers with the really important sports news that can appeal to even none sports fans.

The same day that Mr. Gay’s column appeared some news organizations made a big deal about Derek Jeter resigning as CEO of the Miami Marlins. In my opinion not only is that not a major sports story, but does it really matter? I guess it does to sports reporters who like old fashion sport reporting, or to fanatics, the way it was before it was proven that the Earth was not flat. That’s not to say it didn’t deserve any coverage. If I was still editing a sports page, I most certainly would give the story about a few column inches, 30-35 words to an inch, or if it was a slow news day several column inches more. 

As for fanatics, my advice is to get a life. Do you realty think the moguls of sports care about you? Or for that matter the players who you live or die for. Of course, the team owners want you to think they care about you. That’s how they make their money. But if they really cared about you why did they make deals to stream games that you can only see if you sign on with a streaming service. Isn’t your already expensive cable networks monthly bill enough?

Final Example

On March 1, 2022, the Journal ran a story of the Jeter situation across five columns on the bottom of its sports page. (Overkill, in my opinion.) But the top three quarters of the page featured an article titled, “”Social Media: Essential, Miserable for Athletes,” about how social media platforms have become part of athletes’ lives but can also take a direct toll on their health. And the Times ran a story about how Russia and Belarus athletes are facing an international sports crackdown because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But, of course, the IOC disagreed and on January 25, 2023, paved the way for Russian and Belarus athletes to compete in the 2024 Paris summer games.

Sports have never been what its PR people have promoted it as – a facet of the American experience that should receive special consideration from governments and journalists who cover sporting events. It has historically wrapped itself around the flag with patriotic displays, even though not too many years ago Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake exposed that teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL and in other sports were paid by the Pentagon for their patriotic displays.

That sports business has always had its seamy side is an established fact. Only the government prohibits tobacco products to be advertised on sports telecasts, which still are packed with alcoholic and betting commercials.

Some years ago, Stanley Woodward, a Hall of Fame sports editor, wrote in a telegram that he decided not to send to his columnist, Red Smith, "Will you stop Godding up those ball players?” Even though the wire was never sent, Ira Berkow wrote in Red: A Biography of Red Smith that Smith never forgot the sentiment.

Neither have I. That’s why I believe that runs, hit and errors, or TDs and field goals should no longer be the most important part of sports writing. Print coverage of sports’ cultural matters, politics and business has evolved over the years into a more intelligent and meaningful report. Televisions coverage of sports events still lags behind.  And that makes for a report that doesn’t tell the entire story.

The Important Lessons For PR People

Arguably, controversial accounts are the most interesting ones to be assigned to. And often when working on edgy accounts PR people are asked to do things that they disagree with. I’ve always advised people who reported to me to ask to be assigned to another account rather than work on one that went against their beliefs (and I have refused to work on several accounts whose mission I disagreed with). If management thinks you’re a valuable asset they’ll most likely reassign you. If they refuse, that also sends a message about your standing in the agency.

There’s no doubt that working on major sports marketing accounts can be glamorous. But even when managing and/or playing key roles on the most significant national and international ones, I always made sure that I found the time to work on important corporate accounts, because making a name for yourself on a corporate account presents you with a better opportunity to climb the corporate ladder.