Marketing Case
As a marketing professional, how should each league respond to its image problem?
First of all, all the sport leagues should admit the misconduct of their players and/or their referees to win back the public’s trust. For the NBA case, since the scandal is about the referee, the league should put its effort to ensure a fair and transparent athletics environment in the future. Only claim this is a loner case is not a strong enough statement to convince the public to believe this kind of event will not happen again. The league also needs to provide the public with more restrict and comprehensive regulations, such as more rules or fines, preventing this kind of situation from happening again. For Michael Vick’s “dog fighting” case, since it is a personal behavior which hurts the public felling, the league may force the player to apologize to the public to comfort people who feel angry or sad about his behavior. Furthermore, the league may also set series of public benefit activities for the player to turn over his image in front of public. In effort to address Bond’s using of steroids, the MLB should show its determination to eliminate any kind of illegal drugs within the baseball field to the public. The league may disclose certain level of its steroid check procedure to the public to let the public understand its effort to ensure fair competitions. In addition, the league should make all the record of every player who involved misusing steroid available to the public.
What tools are available to help a team or league to react to negative publicity?
Press conferences. Teams or leagues can hold public press conferences to make announcements after a public crisis occurred. It is always important for a team or league to make open and transparent statement for a public crisis. The most concerned issue of the public is whether they get all the truth and facts of the event which put a team or league in bad situation. An effective press conference will eliminate the rumors and uncertainty among the public and put the team or league in a more favorable position.
Social benefit activities. When a player or