Aug

21

Botta frustrated over sentence in SI column

Filed Under Sports PR 

Former NY Islanders media relations VP, Chris Botta, still blogs under NYI Point Blank even after resigning from his post back in early May. As an aspiring sports PR professional, I have his blog in my Google Reader and always look forward to his new posts. Today’s post discusses some of his frustration regarding a sentence in an SI.com column.

Jim Kelley is a Hall of Fame hockey writer and person who recently made the sort of lazy move that used to give me chest pains when I was on the PR side. In a recent column on SI.com, the former Buffalo News reporter wrote the following sentence on the Islanders:

“It’s the kind of place where experienced coaches like Joel Quennvelle, John Tortotella, Bob Hartley, Maurice, Marc Crawford and a slew of other seasoned but currently unemployed coaches don’t necessarily object to being passed over.”

The laziness has nothing to do with the typos/spelling errors on two big-name NHL coaches. The bigger problem is, does Kelley really know that all of these coaches ho-hummed not getting the Islanders job? Did he ask them? Did he think about checking with them – at least off-the-record – before telling a big audience on Sports Illustrated’s website that they’d rather be unemployed than work for the Islanders?

I really doubt it. The line reads like the kind of throw-away journalism a hockey writer might post from the beach on August 14th. That’s too bad because, beyond the Islanders’ image, Jim may have inadvertently made some respected coaches in need of work look like reckless idiots.

Of the four major sports leagues, I think it’s fair to say that the NHL seems to be struggling the most with garnering media attention, which is a shame because it’s a fantastic sport full of wonderful athletes and stories. Anyways, it is really frustrating when you do see an article about the NHL and then you find big typos (ex. misspelling a star player’s name) that make it look like that media outlet doesn’t even really care about the league.

And as Botta argues in his blog post, what support does he have for that statement? None that he acknowledges at least in his column. It’s hard enough for an NHL team to compete in a crowded market like NYC, but it makes it even tougher among the casual fan when columnists for large respected publications like Sports Illustrated critique your team without proof to back up their complaint.

I’m not really sure how a sports PR professional could really protect their team against that type of remark. Perhaps it just means encouraging a line of communication with reporters so that they feel welcomed to fact check that type of remark. But as Botta reminds his readers, a veteran reporter like Kelley should have the phone numbers to be able to call up those coaches in an effort to confirm that statement in his column.

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