Envisioning the Future

In the future, I definitely see myself in sports P.R. in some capacity. Ideally, I would like to work for my favorite baseball team, the New York Mets. However, I do also relaize that that path might be a long one, filled with many years of experience before the Mets even consider a job application from me.

I would probably start off in an agency, so that I can get plenty of experience doing a little bit of everything. Then I would move on to a corporation, so I can build the proper client relationships. Being a younger applicant, I already accept that I may just be getting paid to update Twitter and Facebook (which I feel the Mets need desperate help with, so maybe I'll get my dream job earlier than expected).

However, I do have a strong passion for journalism and I see myself also doing some freelance writing and continuing my current Mets blog. I don't think I could ever not write; it's like a bodily function for me.

I think after I've moved on from the Mets, I would just keep writing and maybe do some non-profit work.

Of course, this is all a very nice dream to have. I know the real road might not be as perfect as I have planned it. I'm gonna end up going where the jobs are. That might mean a big city like New York or Los Angeles or a small town like Tucker, Georgia. But I would like for my first job to be close to home. Home is where my heart will always be.

A Little Bit About Sports P.R.

With public interest in sporting events, comes the natural need for public relations in sports. Depending on how large or small the organization, whole departments may be employed by one team. Those who work in sports P.R. feed the public's interest in their team, it's athletes, and also play an important promotional role by generating public interest.

Sports P.R. people may do everything from dining with media to handling a media crisis. They gather player information including stats and supervise the printing and delivery in game programs.

Switching gears, instead of talking about the past in sports P.R., I want to focus on the whole Tiger Woods fiasco and it's impact on public relations. Tiger's press conference "apologizing" to his wife, his family, and his fans was a media disaster. It will be remembered for years to come, especially in the communications/public relations department. Everything about that press conference was so ingenuine that P.R. professors would wise to show it and say, "Never do this."

In Tiger's situation, a press conference would not have helped. The whole thing about only selecting a few members from the media and shunning everybody else was just wrong. If I had to say something positive about Tiger Woods's P.R. team, they did fuel general public interest in the story, as it was covered by all the media outlets.

It might seem like a media diaster on the part of Tiger Woods, but it certainly has its place in P.R. history. Keeping his eventual divorce quiet was wise.