Although digital marketing has been around for some time
now, many athletes and their agents have failed to utilize all the available
digital marketing tools. The numerous digital marketing tools that are
available allow athletes and their agents to engage fans, decrease popularity
of negative stories on search engines, create and grow a brand and reach out to
potential sponsors. While many athletes use social media to engage fans, very few
are using digital marketing’s many tools to do things such as decrease the
digital footprint of negative stories.
While it’s hard for superstar athletes to hide from the
media, they can still help control the damage in the long run from some scandals.
Athletes like Tiger Woods may not be able to eliminate his scandalous affairs
from the Internet but he can at least eliminate those stories from the first
several results pages of a Google search. Athletes like John Terry will be able
to accomplish something similar of his affair with a teammate’s girlfriend or
stories of his racial comments towards a fellow player.
Image by James Perrin via Koozai
During a Google search of John Terry, many negative stories
appear on the first page of results about him making potential racist comments.
However, on the bottom of the page, an article clearing Terry of racism can be viewed. While this article’s placement on the first page is
ideal, being at the bottom of a page with five articles insinuating that he is
racist is not ideal. A better digital marketing strategy would likely help the
desired articles to be featured on the front page while the less desirable
articles are relegated to later pages.
Obviously, the best way to avoid bad press is to avoid
scandals entirely but agents have no control over their clients or the media.
However, once the damage is done, athletes and their agents now have the
ability to lessen the negative affects of a scandal or bad press. A digital
marketing strategy can also have the opposite effect by making positive stories
more likely to appear on the first page of a Google search such as a player’s
outstanding off-the-field undertakings. While most agents focus their time on
negotiating contracts and seeking endorsement deals, it is becoming more and
more advantageous for agents to manage athletes’ digital marketing. Digital
marketing management is likely to become a key role of a sports agent in this continually
growing digital age.
