Question

One of the most visible roles that a PR professional performs is coping with crisis and providing damage control. Because of the media interest in these situations, the words and actions of the PR department are often in the news and of peak interest to members of the media. The PR personnel involved in handling the crisis must develop a strategic response in an attempt to alleviate the crisis and minimize damage. For this forum post, research a crisis that has occurred in sport within the last 10 years and answer the following:

• Describe the crisis incident (what happened, who was involved, etc.)

• How do you feel the PR professionals handled the situation?

• What did they do well?

• What could they have done differently?

Answer 1

Q: Describe the crisis incident (what happened, who was involved, etc.)

A: The incident which led to a crisis in cricket was the most recent ball tampering scandal by three senior most players of the Australian international cricket team in March 2018 during the third test cricket match against South Africa in South Africa. Then Australian team cricket captain Steve Smith, the team vice captain David Warner and seasoned bowler Cameron Bancroft were said to be involved in the match fixing / ball tampering scandal which came to be known as the 'Sandpapergate' scandal. The seasoned Australian fast bowler Cameron Bancroft was caught on television cameras broadcasting the live cricket match tampering the ball with sandpaper.

Q: How do you feel the PR professionals handled the situation?

A: There was a huge media outcry with past international cricketing legends, present international cricketing greats, cricket commentators, sports and cricket historians, etc., from around the world joining the chrous in quickly condemning the ball tampering incident and calling for swift and stern disciplinary action from the International Cricket Council (ICC), and the Australian cricket board, Cricket Australia which is directly governing those players contracts.

On its part, Cricket Australia handled the PR crisis well and swung into swift action immediately recalling those players alleged to be involved in the scandal and made a formal announcement on international television channels replacing those players, promising to investigate into the matter and take stern disciplinary action against the players, and generally condemning the incident and further promising to uphold the cricket sports laws, ethics of the game, restore faith in the game and apologizing to the cricketing world and their country who felt ashamed by being brought into such disrepute by their international team senior players. Thus, the PR of the Cricket Australia board acted in good faith and without delay showing an ethical approach and was convincing to the general public so they fared pretty well in this area and handled the situation appropriately in the desired manner.

Q: What did they do well?

A: On its part, the Cricket Australia board handled the PR crisis pretty well and swung into swift action immediately recalling those players alleged to be involved in the scandal and made a formal announcement on international television channels by the Chairman of the Cricket Australia board replacing those players, promising to investigate into the matter and take stern disciplinary action against the players, and generally condemning the incident and further promising to uphold the cricket sports laws, ethics of the game, restore faith in the game and apologizing to the cricketing world and their country who felt ashamed by being brought into such disrepute by their international team senior players. The PR of the Cricket Australia board acted in good faith and without delay showing a transparent, ethical, apologetic and sincere approach and was convincing to the general public. So, this is what they did well in restoring trust and faith in the board and the international team.

Q: What could they have done differently?

A: Since they handled the crisis pretty well and acted swiftly to do damage control and restore faith and trust, there is little they could have done differently. The cricket board was transparent, apologetic and showed an ethical approach which sounded convincing and sincere. These are how any crises must be managed to do damage control and win back the trust of all stakeholders in this case the entire international cricketing community and the people of their country.

So, one can't really imagine much that they could have done differently even though some may question that the punishments of few months suspensions to those players were low in comparison that comes at a later stage argument but not for the immediate issue of PR management in a crisis or conflict situation.