PR Archives - Awful Announcing

Celeste Taylor at the Indiana Fever’s media day on May 1, 2024. (Grace Hollars/The Indianapolis Star, via USA Today Sports.)

WNBA

Celeste Taylor’s Connecticut Sun deal was broken by team PR before her old team announced she left

Reggie Bush’s defamation lawsuit against NCAA over 2021 spokesperson remark advances

A judge found Bush offered "concrete examples" of how a 2021 NCAA spokesperson remark hurt his broadcasting and endorsement deals.

Golf Channel PR gets in X dustup with No Laying Up over delayed Scheffler coverage

"Are you saying you were not allowed to go live *at all* to cover the biggest breaking news story of the year?"

CFL and Argonauts under fire for limited response to lawsuit alleging harassment by Chad Kelly

The CFL's response to Chad Kelly allegations has taken criticism.

Mike Soltys calls ESPN layoffs ‘very disappointing,’ but is moving on from ‘the sadness’

"Showing this amount of people the door, not for performance reasons, is very disappointing."

Knicks’ new branding consultant goes on First Take for first televised interview, says they’ll fire coaching staff, has to recant and apologize

"In my excitement to defend the Knicks on live TV today, I inadvertently insinuated about Knicks personnel. I look forward to working with Knicks management to elevate the great Knicks brand moving forward."

ESPN

The art of the demotion: some of the most prominent ESPN “reassignments” that have minimized negative coverage

Knicks PR insists they didn’t send Richard Jefferson a contract offer, a day after Jefferson said on-air he retired after getting a Knicks...

The Knicks are probably right that they didn't actually offer Richard Jefferson a contract in 2018, but trying to correct Jefferson's on-air claim brought them a lot more negative attention.

After #Fartgate, American Standard offers to send Mike Francesa a personalized “First time, long time” bidet seat

"While the Internet debates whether or not this is true, we wanted to make sure that when you need to go, you can go with dignity."

Astros’ GM Jeff Luhnow meets with SI’s Stephanie Apstein after firing Brandon Taubman, but doesn’t commit to retracting “wrong” statement

A full retraction of a statement Luhnow and the Astros have already called "wrong" and "incorrect" would seemingly be easy, but they haven't committed to doing that.

Astros’ GM Jeff Luhnow continues organization’s PR blunders, says “many people” wrote fabrication statement, he couldn’t personally apologize

Luhnow and the Astros are still digging themselves deeper.

Astros fire assistant GM Brandon Taubman, admit his comments were targeted at specific reporters, apologize to SI with “we were wrong”

Three days after insisting Taubman's comments weren't directed at particular reporters, the Astros have changed their tune.

Astros’ Brandon Taubman reportedly specifically targeted a reporter who’d tweeted about domestic violence, in contrast to team statements

NPR's David Folkenflik reported Tuesday that contrary to statements from Houston Astros' assistant GM Brandon Taubman and from the team, Taubman was targeting a specific female reporter who'd tweeted about domestic violence.

ESPN cancels daily Outside The Lines, changes it to segments and a Saturday show, and Norby Williamson claims they’re ‘expanding’ it

"We’re taking away ‘OTL’s’ linear half-hour daily presence and expanding it. If you compare that 30 minute weekday show from 1-1:30 to the amount of impressions that I’m going to get, we’re going to impact more people."

Rockets’ PR staffer shuts down CNN reporter asking players about China, says “basketball questions only” (updated)

"Basketball questions only" was a bad look here.

Redskins’ PR boss Tony Wyllie exits after nine years with the team and a whole lot of controversies

Wyllie was involved in a whole lot of headlines over the years, including breaking up on-field interviews, sending statements that proved completely false, and comparing Daniel Snyder's lawsuit against The Washington City Paper to the Arab Spring protests.

Cubs’ VP claims tweet on them influencing Russell coverage was “egregious,” reveals he tried to influence FanGraphs over it

Contacting a site to demand that one of their writers take down a tweet doesn't seem like the best way to prove that you can handle critical media coverage, but that's what Cubs' VP (communications and community affairs) Julian Green did.

Michigan State paid a PR firm over $500,000 in January to “monitor” social media activity of Nassar victims, journalists, others

Weber Shandwick billed Michigan State $517,343 in January, more than the school paid football coach Mark Dantonio or basketball coach Tom Izzo that month.

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