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Experts: Washington team’s PR approach is lacking

Owner Daniel Snyder has been tackling a number of serious issues in recent weeks.getty images

The Washington football team and owner Daniel Snyder are facing an unprecedented array of high-stakes controversies without a senior in-house public relations executive, and the club’s overall level of strategic communications guidance appears to fall short of industry standards, experts said.

Since July 1 alone, the team has agreed to change its racially charged nickname under intense public pressure; had it become known that Snyder’s three limited partners are trying to sell their stakes; and hired a law firm to investigate widespread allegations of sexual harassment reported by the Washington Post. All of this comes amid the pandemic, which is creating new communications headaches for even the most stable franchises.

One industry executive familiar with NFL and Washington matters noted Snyder’s checkered executive hiring history but said it would seem “unusual” for Snyder to run the football team “without a robust communications function, either internal, external, or both, at a time when he has a lot on the line.”

Washington has been without a senior PR staffer since September, when Tony Wyllie, longtime senior vice president of communications, took a job with the Special Olympics. Its top full-time PR employee is communications director Sean DeBarbieri, who joined the staff in 2018 after nine months as a PR assistant with the Los Angeles Rams, and two years after graduating from Rutgers. His remit is primarily football communications, working with head coach Ron Rivera. The team has two other junior staffers working under DeBarbieri. Also, Julie Donaldson was hired last Tuesday as senior vice president of media.

For a time this year, Endeavor’s 160over90 agency was providing day-to-day media relations help, but that contract expired in May after the pandemic delayed planned projects.

Terry Bateman, the longtime Snyder associate who officially took on the executive vice president/chief marketing officer title last week, said the franchise has sufficient strategic communications capacity.

“I oversee the entire operation, and we have a great group of people internally and externally that provide insight and expertise on communications strategy,” Bateman said.

Bateman, who sources described as the de facto leader of the business side even before the appointment, is among the architects of the team’s public message. But he also is involved with every other part of the commercial operation, and PR industry experts say the situation requires consistent thinking.

“Somebody should be working full-time on this and the answer is nobody knows exactly who is doing this,” said a source with knowledge of high-level NFL business.

Snyder’s key outside consultant of late has been Jay Leveton, a personal friend and partner in the marketing firm The Stagwell Group, multiple sources said. While other owners have personal PR consultants, it would be highly unusual for that person to also lead team strategizing, one expert said. Leveton did not respond to questions.

Independent sports communications consultant Joe Favorito said it’s risking even worse trouble to confront these issues without making public image a top priority. 

“The smartest companies today, one of the key things they have is a strategic communications expert at the table, listening to everything going on in the world and helping inform their decisions,” Favorito said.

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