Nov

4

Sports PR pro made the jump to the White House

Filed Under Sports PR 

I’m not one to discuss politics on a blog, but I came across a really interesting article in the Sports Business Journal that I just had to blog about on Election Day. Kevin Sullivan is currently the White House director of communications, but his journey to the White House was more sports than politics.

The Chicago native worked with the Dallas Mavericks for 18 years (no, he didn’t work for Mark Cuban) before moving to New York in 2000 where he oversaw the NBC Sports public relations operations. Just four years later, he was promoted as senior vice president of communications for NBC Universal. In 2005, he got an e-mail about an opportunity to head up the U.S. Department of Education communications. While he initially didn’t feel comfortable with working in politics, he met with Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings over lunch. After Spellings pulled the “your country needs you” bit, Sullivan couldn’t say no. Less than two years later, he interviewed with President George Bush for the White House communications position. In his interview, Sullivan used sports to connect with the president.

Initially, Sullivan had some rough days trying to learn all the political lingo and issues. He spent hours and hours cramming and had some uncomfortable meetings with Bush when he didn’t know enough. Once he got comfortable with his post, Sullivan found plenty of comparisons between PR in sports and politics.

“Sports are an incredible training ground for this kind of environment,” Sullivan said. “There is a lot of crisis communication in sports. You’re working a lot of nights and weekends. You’re dealing with reporters working on deadlines. You have passionate fans and constituents who at times can be very fickle. You have to know how to handle those situations.”

When he worked at NBC, Sullivan had to abide by the Tiger Woods rule. This rule meant that if Woods was in a golf tournament on the network, “Tiger Woods” needed to be the first two words of the press release. The rule was instituted by Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics. Now that he works at the White House, he still refers to the rule by ensuring that the most important thing is in the first sentence of the press release.

With his stint in the White House coming to a close, Sullivan plans to do some strategic communications consulting and hopes to find some sports clients once the new administration moves in. Despite his busy schedule at the White House, he was still able to point out an avoidable sports PR disaster from this past year when the Mets fired Willie Randolph at 3am.

“In this world, when an issue or new policy opportunity crops up, the communications people are in the room from the very beginning,” Sullivan said. “If somebody comes up with an idea that’s not going to fly in the press, we have a chance to say, ‘Hold on a minute … the timing never will work or we can’t explain it that way.’ Valuing the input of the communications people is one of the strengths of the president’s management style. ”

Comments

3 Responses to “Sports PR pro made the jump to the White House”

  1. Brad on November 4th, 2008 1:16 pm

    I love the Tiger Woods analogy. It’s so important to cut to the chase with media - especially now. Aspiring PR people need to know this.

  2. Christy on November 8th, 2008 4:31 pm

    I really liked that piece of advice as well Brad. Thanks for leaving a comment!

  3. Sullivan’s four-point PR plan for Vick : Sports PR Blog on May 28th, 2009 10:04 am

    [...] Sports’ popular football blog, with a four-point PR plan for Michael Vick. Sullivan has plenty of experience as he’s done PR for the White House, NBC Universal/NBC Sports, and the Dallas Mavericks. Two [...]

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