The recent disclosures of illegal gambling involving professional athletes validates, in my mind, what I have been telling clients for many years—“using current athletes as publicity spokespersons is a bad bet.”
As the sports marketing guru at several public relations shops, including an almost quarter of a century at Burson-Marsteller when it was the largest international agency, I never was a proponent of using current athletes as publicity spokespersons for a few reasons:
Here’s why:
- Reporters would invariably limit the connection to a brand with a one sentence line saying, “So and so is a spokesperson for the ABC Company.” The remainder of the interview would be about the athlete’s career. Missing were any of the talking points that the client wanted.
- It was difficult to arrange media tours for current athletes because of their playing and training schedule.
- Reporters would write about current athletes at any time so reporters had nothing new to report. Thus, the great majority of athletes-brand stories would end up in trade pubs, not the target audience for brands that wanted their messages in a wide range of consumer pubs and TV shows that were viewed and read by potential customers.
- Because I was a former sports reporter, and knew many columnists and beat reporters, they would level with me and tell me, “I’ll interview the person if it helps you but I can’t include information about the product because my editor will tell me it’s too commercial.”
- Brands can no longer control what athletes say about social and political issues, as they did a few decades ago before athletes were well paid and needed endorsement money.
- And even before the 2025 betting scandal, there were so many off-the-field unsportsmanlike conduct occurrences with athletes that I cautioned clients to try something different
My suggestions were revolutionary in the sports marketing publicity arena at the time. I suggested:
- Depending on the product, use an expert in the field. Instead of a player, use as a spokesperson a sports psychologist, an MD who specializes in sports injuries or a sports historian for interviews. If the client insisted on using an athlete, I recommended using retired athletes for a few reasons: (That does not preclude using athletes when appropriate. More on that later.)
- \Retired athletes enjoyed being remembered and were easier to deal with. (In fact, when I arranged some interviews for Johnny Mize, the Hall of Fame baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees, his wife called and thanked me because Mize appreciated “being remembered.”
- Retired athletes were much less likely than current ones to embarrass a client by committing unsportsmanlike behavior.
- And, importantly, nostalgia being such a big part of sports, reporters enjoyed speaking to greats of the past that they read about or saw playing when the journalists were youngsters. Thus, they were more likely to include references to what the individual was doing now, which made it easier to include a client talking point or two.
A few of the retired athletes that I used as brand publicity spokespersons were:
To promote baseball programs, Lefty Gomez, Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Sparky Anderson, Ernie Banks, and Juan Marichal. Robin Roberts and Ralph Kiner. To promote Olympic programs, Bob Mathias, who won gold medals in the Decathlon, at the 1948 and the 1952 Summer Olympics, was my go-to guy because he was a delight to work with. Athletes that I worked with for non-sports accounts included Bill Russell and Roger Staubach.
Bobby Brown, the New York Yankee third baseman, who studied to be a cardiologist while playing, politely refused to be a spokesperson because he
didn’t want to leave his patients. Tenley Albright, the Olympic figure skater who won the gold medal at the 1956 Winter Olympics and won silver medal in 1952 and became a surgeon and a lecturer in general surgery at Harvard Medical School, also declined being a spokeswoman because she didn’t want to leave her patients. (To the best of my ability, I wanted to engage with athletes who had stellar reputations and I would ask beat reporters I knew if the individual was a “bad” person.”)
Ever since the Supreme Court allowed states to legalize betting in 2018, and team owners became partners with sports books, and TV networks allowed bookies to enter your home with their commercials, it was only a matter of time before a betting scandal would be exposed. How many are unexposed is anyone’s guess. Mine is many.
The public relations advice I began giving brands many years ago—not to use current athletes as publicity spokespersons still stands—because sooner or later (probably sooner) another betting scandal will be exposed and it will include current players.
Using retired athletes as spokespersons is a safer choice. You can bet on it.
