To play or not to play

Thursday, March 13, 2008 | 8:35 a.m. | By Tripp Mickle | Comments | Print

A doomsday scenario landed on some of the top communications, league, media and sponsor executives in sports at the end of the first day of the World Congress of Sports.
The hypothetical scenario: a major league sends two sports teams to Mexico City for a major game featuring two Latin star players who wind up being kidnapped and held for ransom.

Executives spent close to an hour outlining how they would respond as sponsors and league, government and media officials if they were caught up in the crisis before the scenario reached a hypothetical conclusion when U.S. Delta Force troops rescued the players.

Afterward, the Mexican president asked that the league play the game, leaving each executive left to answer one final question: Should the teams play?

Steve Tihanyi, regional marketing director, General Motors: "We play."

Joe Steranka, CEO, PGA of America: "Talk to the players, if they want to play it, we play it, if not we go home."

George Pyne, president, IMG Sports: "The strong preference would be to play."

Dave Morgan, executive editor of Yahoo! Sports: "I'm not playing, so we report it either way."

Randy Freer, president, Fox Regional Cable Sports Networks: "We make sure the level of security is there and make sure all levels feel its safe to play and we televise our event."

Ari Fleischer, president, Ari Fleischer Communications: "I would put it to the two Latin guards. If they decided they wanted to play. Boy, would they become bigger heroes."

Bill Daly, deputy commissioner, NHL: "I would have to defer to the players."

Ray Bednar, SVP and sports sponsorship executive, Bank of America: "I would defer to the players and play."

Leonard Armato, CEO and commissioner, AVP: "I would have to take Barack Obama's line here and say I agree with that answer."