This "Profiles in PR" interview appears in the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) March newsletter
PRSA Tactics.
For Charles Bloom, being the
Southeastern Conference’s associate commissioner for media relations means that he’s on call 365 days a year — mostly regarding football. He keeps track of what people are saying about the Conference as well as trends and changing rules in the sports world.
Bloom served as CoSIDA President during the 2007-08 academic year.
Bloom also helps promote the conference via the Web site (
www.secsports.com) and SEC digital network, and helps oversee television contracts and academic initiatives as well as recognize the achievements of SEC coaches and student athletes. As Bloom tells Amy Jacques, associate editor of
PRSA Tactics news distribution, he developed an interest in sports at an early age. He remembers going to University of Richmond football games as well as local high school games with family and friends while growing up in Virginia. He’s been involved with sports in some capacity ever since, and has worked for the SEC since 1995 in various roles.
Bloom currently serves as president of PRSA’s Alabama Chapter.
Photo courtesy of SEC: Commissioner Michael Slive (l) and Bloom (r).
Full Text: Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Profiles in PR "Good Sport" interview: Charles Bloom, Play-by-Play
HOW DID YOU GET YOUR START IN PUBLIC RELATIONS?CB: I was a news editorial major my first half of college and began working at the University of South Carolina media relations office in the athletic department. I became interested in that and changed my major to public relations and have been in athletics media relations ever since.
DID YOU PLAY SPORTS AT SCHOOL?Just high school sports. I didn’t play in college but I always had an interest in sports and ended up being the sports editor of my school paper as a senior in high school — and I worked part-time as a high school correspondent for a daily newspaper.
DID YOU ALWAYS KNOW THAT YOU WOULD WORK IN SPORTS PUBLIC RELATIONS OR A FIELD THAT INVOLVED YOUR PASSION FOR SPORTS?CB: I knew that I would want to work in sports but didn’t know what avenue it would be. When I was in high school, I probably thought about coaching more than [working] in the PR world — and also journalism. But as I got more experience in sports media relations, I became enamored with it. My grades suffered because of it and I spent more time in the office than I should have. And from that, and developing relationships with coaches and student athletes and administrators in the department, I took a liking to [public relations].
HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR A CAREER LIKE THIS AND STAY UP TO DATE WITH ALL OF THE DEVELOPING RULES AND TRENDS IN SPORTS? DOES IT REQUIRE A LOT OF STUDYING AND RESEARCH?CB: A lot of reading, a lot of research. It’s easy to work in something that you enjoy. So it’s not hard to pick up a book or to read the newspaper or to read a trade magazine to find out what the latest trends are, because you work in sports.
There are people that work in my role at other conferences and at institutions that share that same passion and they want to help their program succeed as well. So it does get very competitive trying to be on the cutting edge — and [the cycle] is very quick. With sports being the way it is today, there’s not much downtime. If it’s not games on the field, it’s recruiting. So it’s a 365 job.
HOW IMPORTANT IS PUBLIC RELATIONS TO THE SEC AND WHAT THE CONFERENCE IS TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH?CB: It’s very important. We rely on our fans. The passion of our fans is one of the things that makes the Southeastern Conference so great. In the nine-state area, we have millions of fans who come to our football games every year, that pack our basketball arenas and come to baseball and gymnastics and all of our other events. Our institutions rely on their fan bases for support — from a fan standpoint and also from a donor standpoint. Image - a reputation - is at stake. We try to do a lot of things that portray the SEC in a positive light athletically and academically.
One of the challenges for us now is that the SEC is no longer a regional brand. We’re working hard at making it a national brand. This [has been] done a lot recently with our new television contracts with CBS and ESPN. College sports fans around the country can watch SEC sporting events pretty much anywhere at any time that the games are on. It impacts our schools athletically as well as academically, attracting students.
WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS HAS THE SEC EMBRACED AND HOW EFFECTIVE HAVE THEYBEEN?CB: We have a heavy presence on the Internet with
SECsports.com and we also have
SECdigitalnetwork.com. One is our information dispersal site that gets the word out and our digital network has a lot of video content to it.
Through our technology company, XOS Technologies, we’re able to show highlight footage, to show original content on our digital network site. We have an active Facebook page, a Southeastern Conference fan page - that as of this date’s got about 35,000 to 36,000 fans. Our Twitter page,
@SECSportsUpdate, has 16,000 fans.
WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES OF CREATING CONTENT WITH THE CHANGING FACE OF TODAY’S ON-THE-GO CONSUMERS? ARE THEY LESS PREDICTABLE THAN THEY USED TO BE?CB: Well, it’s sports and [the fans] want to know who wins — you’ve got to take care of what we call the blocking and tackling. You’ve got to take care of the basic necessities. But they’re always interested in getting behind the scenes and learning what’s going on. We’re starting to do a lot of that now, during a football game - what goes on in the preparation of a football game. They’re going to see the game on TV and they’re going to find out the information, the stats and the blocking and tackling.
But the challenge to us is to provide the fan with behind-thescenes content that’ll keep and pique that fan’s interest to come back for more.
TALK ABOUT THE SEC MEDIA POLICY RELEASED IN AUGUST — IT SEEMS LIKE THERE WAS SOME BACKLASH FROM FANS AND CONFUSION ABOUT WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANT. HOW DID YOU RESOLVE THIS?CB: As a Conference, we redid our television contracts with CBS and ESPN. With those television contracts, we were able to get the rights to all of our video content that had ever been on CBS’s or ESPN’s air - as well as anything going forward. Basically, once a game is completed, we have the rights to that video. So what became the mission of the Conference with the technology arrangement that we had was that we wanted to make SECsports.com, the SEC Digital Network, the only place on the Internet to watch video of our athletic contests.
The initial media policy was written way too vague. The policy was long on legalese and short on public relations. So we made the mistake of getting that out without having enough eyeballs on the PR side to review it. Once we sent it out, we almost immediately started getting criticism. So we modified it twice. We modified it once with input from our institutions and then the second time, when the Associated Press sports editors, the Associated Press managing editors and the radio & television news directors contacted us about some other policy changes that they would like to see.
Now, the second part of the policy was our ticket policy because it gave the impression that you couldn’t do any social media entries from the stands during a game. That was never our intent. So that was easy to remedy. It took us a couple of days to get it rewritten. In the meantime, we were getting hit pretty severely in the blogosphere. But we fixed it and got it to a place where everybody thought we should be to begin with.
WHAT TRENDS DO YOU SEE ON THE HORIZON FOR SPORTS PUBLIC RELATIONS AND FORPUBLIC RELATIONS IN GENERAL?CB: In sports public relations, with the passionate fan bases that are out there, I almost equate it to what a political campaign must be like. It’s always trying to protect your brand, fight for the reputation of your brand and get ahead of the other guy.
If you’re working at the University of Alabama or Auburn University, it’s how can you elevate your brand to be better than the other schools in the league or other schools around the country. It’s competitive, so I sense that traditionally in the sports PR field where we were dealing with statistics and media guides and running the press box, it’s going to evolve into a lot more image enhancement, reputation management issues. And it’s going to be constant and continuous and competitive.
WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR THOSE LOOKING TO BREAK INTO SPORTS PUBLIC RELATIONS?CB: There are two different levels to speak to: one is the college side and one is the professional side. I’m blessed to work on the college side and I tell people, don’t get into it if you love sports. If you love sports, that’s not enough. You’ve got to want to make an impact on people’s lives. You will come across student athletes who are right out of high school and they’re at the age where it’s the most important years of their lives. You can make a positive impact in your position, not only from a professional side in terms of promoting and working with them in terms of communication, but also that’s who you’re working for - the student athlete. You can be a meaningful part of his or her life.
In the professional ranks, it’s entertainment - it’s winning above all else. There’s a commitment to winning as well in college but probably more so in the pro game, whereas the education aspect is not nearly as prevalent as it is in the college game.
PRSA HAS A STRONG PRESENCE IN ALABAMA. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE NETWORK OF PROFESSIONALS IN THE CHAPTER?CB: We have a great group of professionals. There’s a passion here - using the PRSA Chapter, to build the profession in the city and in the state that will benefit the area. It’s been fun. It’s been rewarding to be part of the group because it is truly an outstanding group of people.
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