Nike and LeBron Are Clueless in PR…Or Are They?

As we enter Day 5 of the Dunk-Gate saga, both Nike and LeBron James continue to look pretty silly and have tainted, just a little bit, their golden images with the way they’ve handled the ridiculous situation.

The situation, of course, occurred Monday in Akron, OH, at LeBron’s Skills Academy when Xavier’s Jordan Crawford, allegedly, dunked on King James in a pickup game.

Two videographers captured the entire event on tape but had the evidence confiscated by Nike, a major sponsor of both James and the camp, after LeBron, apparently, instructed a Nike representative to do so.

James ordered the Nike rep to seize the tapes in order to prevent the video’s release to the public and spare him and Nike any embarrassment (so the story goes).

Word immediately spread of the incident with the, now, national story not being the dunk itself but the fact that James and Nike acted like some communist dictator and censored the media by attempting to block the truth from reaching the masses.

Editor’s Note: If you learn just one thing from reading SportsPR101, please make it this: “In public relations, the cover up is always worse than the crime itself.”

Not only did Nike do a dumb thing by forcing the videographers to turn over the tapes and assumed word of its “police action” would not leak out, but the sports-industry giant now continues to spin the incident like the dunk never happened and has claimed the tapes were seized for a different reason:

“Nike has been operating basketball camps for young athletes for decades and has long-standing policies as to what events are open and closed to media coverage,” Nike spokesperson Derek Kent said. “Two journalists did not respect our no-videotaping policy at an after-hours pickup game following the LeBron James Skills Academy.”

Come on, Nike…you can do better than that!

The whole episode has been puzzling, from a PR perspective, because Nike, a huge player in the world of sports business, has handled the entire situation horribly – making many basic PR errors.

One could almost excuse the act of seizing the tapes, because any individual employee who represents your brand can make a bad decision and do something foolish to embarrass your name. It can, and does, happen to everybody.

But to compound the mistake by lying and hoping the media storm would just go away is an amateur move that Nike knows better not to commit.

So, I was thinking…maybe Nike’s got something else up its sleeve.

The longer this thing plays out, the more media attention Nike receives.

Yes, to this point, the publicity has been all negative for Nike and James (and I don’t subscribe to the theory of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” ).

Just about every media outlet, including the non-sports shows and publications, have reported and discussed at length the dunk and the subsequent missing tapes. And now, some clever marketer has created a “I Dunked on LeBron…But He Stole My Video Tape” T-Shirt and is selling them on FanIQ.com.

The whole thing has become a media circus that the public, apparently, is fascinated with.

Publicity like this doesn’t come along everyday. So wouldn’t it be brilliant if Nike had some master plan that ultimately turned everything around and made them look great?

Nike doesn’t get to be Nike without some very talented PR and marketing minds working behind its brand. So wouldn’t one have to speculate that we haven’t heard the last from them regarding Dunk-Gate?

With the tapes in its possession and the media hype building and building, Nike has a terrific opportunity to pick its moment and, along with James, create a PR stunt to swing fans and the media back to worshipping them.

Maybe Nike launches a new ad campaign mocking the Richard Nixon “Watergate” scandal of the mid 1970’s, with James portraying the role of the embattled President.

Or, maybe Nike and James stage a pseudo-press conference, really hamming it up, denying all allegations of the dunk only to be busted with a crazy surprise twist to the thickening plot.

The point is – Nike and James need to stop taking themselves so seriously and have some fun with all of the unexpected publicity.

Carpe diem (seize the day).

Nike needs to start controlling the story, not the other way around.