A new survey from TSN reports that the players are losing the PR war with NHL owners:
When Canadians were asked to consider whom they felt is being more fair and reasonable in the dispute - the players or the owners - 61% of Canadians leaned towards the owners (up 1% from the last survey) while 14% sided with the players, a drop of 6% from September.
This is pretty incredible, especially once you remember that it's the owners who are locking out the players in a labor action that ownership planned -- for six years.
How are they doing it? Spend a few minutes over at NHL CBA News, and you'll start to get the idea how. Now, I would never suggest that reporters are lazy. But every good PR person knows that the easier you make life for a reporter, the more likely it is that reporter will give your side of the story a fair hearing.
If you were a novice reporter trying to write a basic piece about the lockout, you could probably put it together in less than an hour just by referring to sources you could find over at NHL CBA News. Literally everything you need to tell the owner's side of the story is there, as well as copies of the actual CBA itself, and refutations of some union arguments.
Compare that to what you'll find at the Players Association site, NHLPA.com. There, you'll find just two articles, and four press releases (in a press release archive that doesn't seem to be updated all that often) about the lockout. And, as Tom Benjamin has helpfully pointed out, the union is actually going the other way, and removing some information from the site.
If I were NHLPA President Trevor Linden, I'd be asking NHLPA Executive Director Bob Goodenow why he hadn't invested some union dues in hiring some basic PR help. Thanks to Rocha@Hockeybird for the TSN link.
Amen. I even offered to do it for free.
Well, the players aren’t really engaged in a PR war because they realize it doesn’t really matter. Where does public opinion and fan opinion fit into the possibly new CBA?
I’ll say this too: call the NHL offices and call the NHLPA – do this after the league ever resumes play too – then let me know who’s more pleasant and accommodating (it’s the PA).
Now, all that being said, it wouldn’t hurt if they’d at least try and counter with a little bit here – but the NHL hired a former Clinton PR man, who helped him do wonders against Bush Sr.
What the PA certainly has to do is release some number arguments or all we’re going to see is reprinted nhlcbanews.com propaganda. They need to achieve more balance (they also need to admit that the Levitt report is valid, but hey, one step at a time I guess).
“Where does public opinion and fan opinion fit into the possibly new CBA?” I think it would “fit in” pretty fast if they went to replacement players: public opinion, and its surprising tolerance for Replacement Football, is what ultimately broke the NFL players.
That’s a harder road for the NHL to take–and if they go that way it’ll serve to undermine the owners’ argument that it makes no difference to them whether there’s a season or not–but it’s one they’ll look at, because they do need to do it before the agents organize another competitive venue, and the sooner they start talking about it, the sooner they can start wooing individuals away from union discipline.
PR really is a big deal in this dispute, and the players needed to work overtime to surmount the brute, horrifying fact of their $2M average salary. Instead they phoned in that part of the battle.