Public Relation in Sports - Contribution, Advantages and Disadvantages

Running head: PUBLIC RELATION IN SPORTS
PUBLIC RELATION IN SPORTS
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Introduction
Public Relation strategies are formulated by the organizations and the individuals with
the objective of improving authority while building communication and brand reputation among
the target set of audience. In this relation, the sports industry developed the PR activities with the
purpose of establishing sound communication between the athletes and the fans or the general
audience. Serbanica and Constantinescu (30) stated that the PR strategies enables an organization
in educating the fans or the business customers about the athletes for encouraging sponsorships
and effective promotion of the athlete. In this relation, the discussion would take steps to identify
the contribution of PR in the sports industry and thereby assess the advantages and disadvantages
of utilizing PR strategies as a gateway to promotions that are different from social media
promotions.
Contribution of PR in sports industry and the ‘Public’ associated with the industry
Walden and Parcha (147) opined that the international sports PR activities include media
relations, promotional and publicity based activities, sponsorship, event management and
establishment of fan relationships. In this context, Public Relations professionals identifies and
exhibits the complex value chain in sports and thereby strategically manage communication with
the fans. On the other hand, the PR in sports also contributed in developing appropriate celebrity
profiles and communicating the same with fans for improving publicity ad brand reputation of
any athlete or an organization. Moreover, Posthuma et al. (527) opined that the PR professionals
identify the demand of the audience while positioning their promotions on the celebrities and
athletes to generate value from the same for the athlete or the brand. It has been noted that the
sports is a sociological event that is evenly consumed by the audience and thereby the

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identification of the demand of the audience and calibration of the propositions enables an
organization or team or an athlete in developing brand reputation (Giannoulakis 174).
Again, WALDEN (230) stated that PR works as an efficient tool in developing awareness
and a strong bond between the fans and the teams. On the other hand, the PR activities also
encourages different media channels to sponsor in the sports events and thereby contributing
largely to the sustenance of the game. It has been noticed that the sustenance and efficiency of an
organizations operations are specifically based on the long term relationship with the athletes,
spectators, sponsors and community. The eventful relation with the stakeholders, through PR,
would enable the organization in developing value for all the stakeholders irrespective of their
contribution to the sports industry (Serbanica and Constantinescu 30). Therefore, PR strategies of
a sports organization enables the same in developing efficient interlinks with the different
stakeholders while maintaining the efficiency of the operations.
It has been noted that the global sports industry is worth between €350 billion and
€450 billion through a study of teams, leagues and federations (Parent 126). 47% of the growth
in the industry can be attributed to the extensive PR activities that are undertaken by the teams
and the individual athletes for keeping the communities and fans informed of their status and
profile (Ziek 122). Apart from the sale of licensed products, infrastructural growth and
live sports events might be perceived as a contribution to huge PR activities in the industry.
Therefore, the growth of PR activities in the industry brought about dynamic changes through
improvement of client relations with the communities, developing sponsorship actions, publicity
and profiling of the athletes for ensuring the brand image of the organizations.