One of the oldest clichés in sports is, “The best offense is a good defense.” And that principle certainly applies to successful strategies in sports public relations. The NBA and commissioner David Stern showed us an example last week of a strong PR defense with a preemptive strike intended to squash potential PR damage regarding the current referee lockout. With training camps opening up and no end in sight to the current labor issues, the NBA is using replacement refs for preseason and possibly regular season games. Of the 62 replacement refs hired, more than half are from the NBA’s [...]
There’s no bigger threat to an individual sport than illegal gambling. The media and fans can argue all day long about the detrimental impact of steroids in baseball, but a sport can be completely destroyed if even the faintest whiff of a gambling impropriety is detected. The NCAA and all major professional sports have been hurt, to various degrees, throughout its history by betting scandals and have had to work extremely hard to distance itself from all types of illegal bookmaking and organized crime. Although gambling will always be apart of the sports culture, nothing is more important to sports [...]
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