Rodger Goodell e-mail me yesterday.

And, I assume he e-mailed many other people.

First of all, I like it.

I’ve got an e-mail from the president of the University of Alabama, when I was a graduate student there. Athletic director of Alabama also e-mailed me once.

I’ve got an e-mail from the Chancellor of UW-Stevens Point at the end of the last semester.

I greatly appreciate when the head of my organization does it. I always think this is a great public relations effort.

Well, Roger Goodell is not the head of my organization and I feel like I’m the head of his organization, since I am a fan, a customer, so called the King. It’s little different. Yes.

As a head of his organization, I like his comment in his e-mail,

If both sides give a little, everyone, including fans, will get a lot and the game will improve through innovation.

I am not sarcastic at all. Truly, I like that comment and I hope both sides really give a little.

I also like the fact that he explained the situation to his fans and he is indeed trying to embrace many publics, including fans.

I like his conclusion, too.

My job is to represent the game — the fans, teams, players, coaches and business partners. Protecting the integrity of the game and ensuring it thrives is a responsibility I take very seriously.

This is about more than a labor agreement. It’s about the future of the NFL. We have to improve and will be relentless in our quest. The commitment to our fans is to make the NFL experience even better in the years ahead. With a responsible CBA, we will fulfill that vision.

I know Roger Goodell began his NFL career as a PR intern. He was also an assistant in PR department of New York Jets.

I liked his approach when he dealt with Micheal Vick, because he considered the league itself as well as the future of one player. He even invited Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, to help Michael Vick.

I also like his approach at this time because he seems to follow the public relations principles that Arthur Page Society suggested.

Arthur Page Society is “a professional association for senior public relations and corporate communications executives who seek to enrich and strengthen their profession.” (Arthur Page Society webpage). They suggested very famous textbook principles for Public Relations on their website, which I always share with my students in my any PR classes.

• Tell the truth. Let the public know what’s happening and provide an accurate picture of the company’s character, ideals and practices.
• Prove it with action. Public perception of an organization is determined 90 percent by what it does and 10 percent by what it says.
• Listen to the customer. To serve the company well, understand what the public wants and needs. Keep top decision makers and other employees informed about public reaction to company products, policies and practices.
• Manage for tomorrow. Anticipate public reaction and eliminate practices that create difficulties. Generate goodwill.
• Conduct public relations as if the whole company depends on it. Corporate relations is a management function. No corporate strategy should be implemented without considering its impact on the public. The public relations professional is a policymaker capable of handling a wide range of corporate communications activities.
• Realize a company’s true character is expressed by its people. The strongest opinions — good or bad — about a company are shaped by the words and deeds of its employees. As a result, every employee — active or retired — is involved with public relations. It is the responsibility of corporate communications to support each employee’s capability and desire to be an honest, knowledgeable ambassador to customers, friends, shareowners and public officials.
• Remain calm, patient and good-humored. Lay the groundwork for public relations miracles with consistent and reasoned attention to information and contacts. This may be difficult with today’s contentious 24-hour news cycles and endless number of watchdog organizations. But when a crisis arises, remember, cool heads communicate best. (Excerpted from Arthur Page Society webpage)

Dr. William Anderson said, in Public Relations Review (2008, pp. 151-155), public relations background of Pete Rozelle, former commissioner of NFL, and his approach as a PR person, made NFL the number one sport in the U.S. I also agree with Dr. Anderson and like to talk about how they differently treated crisis issues from other professional sports organizations in my classes from time to time.

I think Roger Goodell tried it little bit differently at this time, too, by e-mailing one of his very important stakeholders, the fans.  OK. Now, he has the most important, but, the most difficult tasks among those seven principles. Tell the truth and prove with action. But, at least, he already initiated to communicate with the fans. I hope he did it with other stakeholders, too. And, I hope he proves with his action. I am not talking about the agreement, but, the approach. I hope he listens to and talks with players.

Well, either way, I will use his example in my class. I hope it is a case of good PR, because I am also one of the fans of NFL, as Roger Goodell indicated in his e-mail, who cares the league.

Why, Micheal Vick? What do you want?

Public Relations. I would like to define this as a facilitator of communication between organization and  stakeholders (publics). Publics include employer, employees, legal personals, customers (of course), media, and in sports, players. I firmly believe that PR in any organization is THE department, who handle those relationships, because, first, my students will be in those positions someday and second, it is definitely PR, who will control information delivered to the outside of organization. 

In sports, and any kind of entertainment industry, where PR needs to deal with “celebrities”, PR pros, well, actually, whole organization has a very unique public. Players are people, who usually have high self-esteem and a strong competitive characteristic. Without that, they cannot be in that place. According to NCAA.org, there are 119 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Schools. There are also 144 Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) Schools. FBS has 85 scholarship limits and FCS has 63 scholarship limits. That number gives me about 20,000 football players. Assuming that one-fourth of them are seniors, we will have 5,000 football players graduating and waiting for being drafted by NFL, if they ever want to make it to the NFL. Then, how many players are drafted in 7 rounds of NFL draft? Approximately, 250 players or less. Just itself gives me this stat. One out of 20 students will be drafted. This is not all. If you want to play regularly and make a good money in the NFL, the situation becomes bit more competitive. Assuming that only first and second round pick-ups will have a shot at the starting position, one out of 85 students, approximately, will have a chance to be rich. Well, considering minimum salary of NFL for first-year players is about $300,000, if you are drafted, it means, your wage is already higher than average people. But, before thinking about college graduates, how good and competitive you should be to be recruited by one of the FBS schools. Alabama High School Athletic Association, which is not the biggest high school association in the state, solely has 401 senior high schools, according to Wikipedia website.  Well, after calculating all these, I would like to tell my son, who wants to be a soccer player, don’t even think about it. He may even need to compete with people in Europe, Asia, South America, well, literally, everywhere. 

Hew… Well, then, What’s the problem, Micheal Vick? 

Why did you work so hard, Michael? Picture obtained from nydailynews.com

I know it is hard to deal with celebrities and I think they deserve it, since they worked so hard to get what they wanted to get. So, it is really hard for sports organizations to communicate with these celebrities, because, very often, they do not have to think about their future, because they already accomplished their biggest dream. 

When Roger Goodell introduced Tony Dungy as a mentor of Michael Vick and even invited Wayne Pacelle, the head of Humane Society, to 60 minutes interview, what he was doing was PR. In one of my research, I analyzed many crisis situations in newspapers, and many of them blamed a person and tried to differentiate him or her from the organization. I know NFL needed Michael Vick, probably, but, not really. I don’t think so. Atlanta Falcons already found their quarterback at Matt Ryan. Which NFL team really needed a player like Michael Vick? Philadelphia Eagles might not need him with Donovan McNabb, who won 132 games for 11 seasons with Eagles as a starter. Then, why did Roger Goodell have to protect Michael Vick? 

I, often, tell my students, PR is a mother nature, well, parent nature, I guess. I have a son and I apologize when he does something wrong in public. Why? Because I love him and I want him to be successful. And, also, he will be my future, someday. He will be my happiness in the future, in my 60s and 70s. So, I would like to protect him as much as possible. Sometimes, I give him a punishment, because I really care of him. That is PR. And, what Roger Goodell did was exactly PR. Anderson William, a scholar, wrote an article about NFL’s PR history in Public Relations Review (2008)’s special issue. He insisted that NFL values PR the most among professional sports organizations in the U.S. Roger Goodell just showed that. So, I often told my students NFL handled Vick’s case much better than other organizations did with their crises, such as Steroid issue in MLB. I don’t really think MLB was supportive to players. 

In this case, though, PR hurt itself, eventually. If you are a business person, you may say, show me the money, and will say, look at Michael Vick. You should just let him go. Well, it was a typical conversation with people in business when I studied for my doctoral degree in communication. Does relationship and good communication bring a profit? Well, maybe not. Or, it may not be measurable at all. 

When my son makes same mistakes over and over, sometimes, he hurts my feeling.  And, I am saying that you just hurt my feeling and are you happy when I am sad? When my students try to fool me, it hurts my feelings so badly. And, I also want to tell my students, if you fool me, you may get a good grade in my course, but, you may not be able to be successful in your life. I just don’t want to see that. And, I really hope students understand that. 

Michael, I know and I hope you are innocent and you are not really related with the shooting the other day. I want to believe in your comments. But, look, what did Roger Goodell do to you? What did Tony Dungy do to you? What about the NFL? What about the fans who accepted you in the NFL again? What about the children you gave a speech to? And, most importantly, what about yourself? Did you really have to be there? 

Well, this is very sad Sports PR issue. I really hope he is OK and Eagles gives him one more chance. But, it is very sad. Michael Vick worked so hard to go to Virginia Tech and competed even harder to be picked by Falcons. In PR, we need to deal with this kind of public. And, the most important thing is to understand them and really try to help them in person. And, that is clearly a job of PR, because PR is a parent nature and PR is a facilitator of communication. 

The day Michael Vick became a son of NFL, Picture obtained from Sports Illustrated