How sports clubs can communicate with the media 

Making a start with the media

When you first consider chatting to the media, your team will be full of good news you want the world to know about. But exactly how do you do that, when the possibilities seem endless? As a sports club, understanding how to communicate with the media and tap into the potential for free marketing and promotion can feel daunting if it’s something new to you, or not something that has yielded much success in the past. Even then, what seems to work one time, doesn’t work the next – despite applying the same formula! 

Why should sports bother communicating with the media? 

It’s worth persisting, as each time you try and get it right, you’re building up a bank of useful connections, and showing that journalists can come to you when they need a story or source, as well as you needing to approach them. 

Getting media coverage for your sports club allows you to show off your team’s successes and what you’re doing for the community. The benefits of this publicity are huge – from enticing new players and athletes to sign with you, to gathering new sponsorship… from raising the profile of your sport, to getting people along to your matches, races and events… It’s a cost effective way to engage with huge swathes of people in one go, and amounts to free advertising! What’s more, there’s a domino effect – even if just one outlet picks it up, others will also cover it off the back of it, let alone the social media ‘share’ effect amongst the general public and fans. 

The media is more omnipresent than it’s ever been, with social media posts and breaking news alerts on our smartphones constantly interrupting our days, and the ability to like and share posts at the touch of a fingertip. Sports clubs need a social media presence – without it your team just blurs into the background as an out-of-touch rather than finger-on-pulse presence in the community.  

Let’s look at the stats

Around 90% of people aged 25-34 year olds in the UK have a profile on a social media network (such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube) with 57.6 million active social media users of all ages across the UK. According to a report published by statista last year, “In 2021, an online survey conducted in the UK found that 36 percent of UK news consumers said they used Facebook as a source of news, making it the third most popular source after broadcasters BBC and ITV.” 

But it’s not just social media that needs our attention. British newspapers may have been around since the 1600s, but stories have always been important – they are the very soul of who we are as human beings! The legacy must live on… Print and broadcast media (including podcasts) pervade, with Ofcom’s Media nations: UK 2022 report advising that despite the decline in consumption of public service broadcasting, it continues to evolve to match audience’s habits.  

Essentially, whilst people love stories, we’ll always have the media, so it’s worth getting an ‘in’ with the outlets that suit your stories.  

Like all relationships, cultivating correctly is key 

When it comes to sports team communicating with the media, you have to get it right – it can’t be a slapdash effort. Different types of media outlets will require different approaches.  

The media can be a very powerful ally or fearsome foe to anyone it publishes a story about. It has the power to lift you up with news of triumph or drop the world’s weight of scorn on your team or sport if foul play is afoot. The cost of negative media coverage impacts on team morale, public opinion, chance of sponsorship and reputation with national governing bodies. More on this in our blog on good governance in sport. 

The good news with sport is that it’s a news topic that is naturally geared towards celebrating. Someone has to win in sport, and so coverage will celebrate that success. A lot of news in general can veer towards the negativity and drama, but both local and national media are brimming with feel-good stories, of both team and individual success, and heart-warmers like team’s championing EEDI (equity, equality, diversity and inclusion) in the local community. 

eLearning course: Communicating with the Media in Sport

In Communicating with the Media, Accelerate Sport’s new eLearning course, you can unlock practical tips from longstanding journalists such as sports journalist Graham Thomas, as well as PR and comms experts, to help you pitch your stories properly and to the correct people. You’ll be taken beyond the who, what, when, where, why and how at the heart of all good journalism, and discover the secrets of the profession to help you get it right the first time.  

This includes how to take on the right interviews and the best people to send to them, the dos and don’ts of a press release (as well as exploring downloadable example templates to work from), how to use social media, the importance of emotive story-telling, and some activities to have a go at. 

This online course – set across six interesting and interactive modules which you can complete anywhere, any time – offers: 

• An insight into the fast-changing professional media landscape, with particular reference to how it operates in the UK  
• A broad knowledge and understanding of the media and communications industries 
• An understanding of the often complex nature of the media and its requirements 
• The knowledge, ability and confidence to enable you to operate and communicate effectively with journalists. 

Check out Communicating with the Media course preview to learn more!

ENROL: Enrol for the ‘Communicating with the Media in Sport’ eLearning course

Blog written by Alice Gunn

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