The training ground of champions

We have been lucky enough to work across many different areas of tennis but none is quite as close to our hearts as our involvement with junior tennis. 

My first experience of junior tennis was watching the boys’ and girls’ matches at the 2001 Wimbledon Championships as part of what was then a new writing gig for the International Tennis Federation (ITF). From the start I found it fascinating to see these talented young players serve their apprenticeship and learn not just about how to prepare for and win matches but also how to function in the unique atmosphere of a major tennis tournament. 

Faye Andrews, my co-director at The Emilia Group, spent eight years immersed in junior tennis as part of a long-term, full-time role at the ITF so her bond with this aspect of the sport is arguably even stronger than mine. That’s why we were both delighted when we began working with Tennis Europe at the start of this year, an organisation of member nations across the continent which runs, among other things, the Tennis Europe Junior Tour.

The TEJT has a roster of events for players aged 12-under, 14-under and 16-under, including a season-ending Masters tournament for the top eight players in each category. It boast players from more than 100 countries across Europe, players with a range of personalities and backgrounds with one thing in common - the desire and potential to end up being the best tennis players on the planet. Rafael Nadal, Justine Henin, Caroline Wozniacki, Andy Murray, Victoria Azarenka, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Maria Sharapova (to name just a few) were all in their shoes once; finding their way and growing up while playing Tennis Europe Junior Tour events. 

Rafel Nadal at a Tennis Europe junior tournament

That impressive list of former TEJT players is not limited to Europeans either; Guillermo Coria, Andy Roddick, Juan Martín Del Potro and Sania Mirza all got their first taste of European competition on the tour. If you go back further you get a sense of the role that Tennis Europe has played in nurturing some of the greatest players of all time, from Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic to Steffi Graf, Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker and Mats Wilander. 

Clockwise from top left: Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray,
Roger Federer, Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg

As part of our role as media consultants to Tennis Europe, we have twice been lucky enough to attend the Tennis Europe Junior Masters, which is held in Reggio Calabria each October. On both occasions we have loved watching how the players bond and learn from each other, as well as from the educational sessions held during the tournament in which we deliver interactive media training. The ethos of the Tennis Europe Junior Tour is very much like that of the global ITF Junior Circuit (which includes the 18-under Junior Grand Slam events) in that it combines the highest levels of competition and professional-standard tournaments with a commitment to support players’ off-court development too. 

These junior tours are designed to mirror the ITF Pro Circuit, ATP and WTA Tours in every way, even down to having a cumulative ranking system and anti-doping programme. In every sense it is where champions learn their trade.  

Building media relationships Djokovic style

One of our favourite sights of 2012 was Novak Djokovic breaking away from his post-semi final press conference at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals to personally to hand out chocolates to the assembled journalists as a thank you for their cooperation during the season.

It was a simple act, one which not only endeared the World No.1 to those in the room but also became a hit piece of viral video on social media, circulated via Twitter, Facebook and You Tube within the hour so that fans could celebrate his thoughtfulness as well. 

So, for the price of a few boxes of chocolates and a few moments of Djokovic’s time, the World No.1 and his management team pulled off brilliant piece of positive PR that should serve as an example to other high profile athletes and their advisors.

Watch the video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h31XCIrXNo

There are many mutual benefits from having a good relationship between an athlete and media but too often the two are kept apart, as though they worked in parallel universes rather than within the same sport.   Having seen the relationship from both sides now, I can see how this happens. There are usually many layers of people between player and journalist and the very formal press conference format - with its inherent time pressure to get a list of interviews done quickly - leaves little room for friendly, relaxed interaction. The opportunities to chat as colleagues, working in different sides of the same industry, are few and far between. 

The onus is on the player and his or her advisors to create those opportunities. That could mean making time for the occasional coffee and an off-the-record chat with one or two journalists from your own country or it could be something as simple - and human - as remembering to smile and say hello when passing a familiar face from your press conferences in tournament corridors. This is something that we always stress to players that we work with - a smile here and a quick, friendly chat there can go a long way.

It is not just about stroking journalists’ egos - because, let’s face it, most journos develop a necessary thick skin early on in their careers - it’s about breaking down barriers so that you can help each other do a good job.

In talking to athletes, coaches and sports administrators about media, the same misconceptions, prejudices and fears come up time and again. The fear of the unknown can be a powerful force and it can make players unnecessarily nervous, defensive and wary of speaking to journalists or doing interviews. This can lead to bad experiences with media and a lack of confidence which, in turn, leads to poor interviews, unusable quotes and little or no profile for the athlete and his or her sponsors. 

To an uneducated athlete - or one who has been given a negative impression of the media by well-meaning people around them - a journalist is an abstract figure, poised to ask them questions and, perhaps, publicly find fault with what they say or how they play. In my experience you can dispel a lot of myths by simply explaining what those strange men and women in the press room actually do, how deadlines work, why they asked certain questions and what everyone is trying to achieve. Players also need to be educated, as early on in their careers as possible, on how having a positive media profile can help them engage with sponsors and fans.

The more athletes can be helped to see journalists and broadcasters as human beings, the better for them and their sport, not to mention those trying to cover it. If they are in any doubt then they should follow Nole’s lead - chocolate is, after all, always a winner. 

Helping small businesses share more effectively

One of the most enjoyable aspects of having your own company is the way unexpected opportunities arise that take you - and your expertise - in a direction you didn’t forsee.

The Emilia Group’s core business, as you can probably guess from looking at our website, is sports media - be that communications, PR, events, athlete management, acting as publicist, media training sportspeople or social media for sport brands and organisations. The skills and experience that we have can be applied to different sports and different athletes, whether they are tennis players, fencers, runners or gymnasts. 

Yet in the last few months we’ve added airline pilots, a plastic surgeon and an events specialist working in the film industry to the list of people who’ve sought our advice. On the face of it, these organisations and companies have little in common with each other - and next to nothing in common with the sports brands we usually work with - but on talking to them we discovered a shared thread. All of them wanted to raise their profile and “get themselves out there a bit more” and none of them knew how to make that happen.

As small business owners ourselves, we understand that as well as delivering the skill or services you actually get paid for, you can also find yourselves having to be a Jack - or a Jill - of all trades. By turns you are expected to be a bookkeeper, administrator, sales person and - crucially in this context - boast a working knowledge of marketing and PR. This is asking for a contradictory skills or, put another way, for one person to be an expert in everything. We understand how to promote our company - and other people’s -  because its our stock-in-trade but ask us to perform a rhinoplasty operation or fly a 747 and even we might struggle a little!

So where do small businesses or organisations turn when they need specialist advice to raise their profile and build their brand? Some seek advice from companies offering “digital PR”, and in return get ambitious plans laden with jargon and marketing-speak and, usually, a strategy-by-numbers better suited to a much bigger company with a far larger budget.

Not every company needs a Facebook page or a You Tube channel and, by the same token, printing off hundreds of fliers - for hundreds of pounds - can often be a waste of time and money. We take the same approach with small companies and organisations as we do with athletes, governing bodies and sports events organisers and it always starts with listening.

By listening we can work out what the goal is and who they are trying to reach. From there we can build a PR plan for them to follow, which may or may not include social media. Sometimes our work ends with some in-house social media or PR training, in other cases we might project-manage building a website and creating content, while some clients require ongoing PR, media and marketing support. 

There is no one-size-fits-all solution because we’re all about tailoring the PR strategy and the service we provide to the needs of the client - whether they’re a tennis player or an airline pilot.

The responsibilities of a sports publicist

We love working with athletes and helping them to find ways of raising their profile without raising their workload of commitments so our role as publicist for sportspeople is one we genuinely relish. The pursuit of excellence in professional sport is a gruelling and time-consuming business, where time for media and sponsors has to eked out from a packed schedule of training and competition.

Maximising media exposure while minimising impact on performance takes planning, imagination, experience and a lot of lateral thinking. Above all, it has to start with the athlete.

We begin with working on a strategy based on what the athlete wants to achieve. Sport is all about setting goals and working towards them, and that's at the core of our approach. The goal could be to attract more sponsors, or to target sponsors in a particular business sector; it could be for the athlete to lay a foundation for a future career as a pundit or presenter. Whatever the goal, every bit of media the athlete does should be helping them reach it. Their time is too precious for media for media's sake.

Take a day we recently organised for tennis player Elena Baltacha. It was built around an appearance on BBC panel show Question of Sport. Our goal for Elena is to raise her profile and for her to improve her confidence and skills in front of camera, so appearances on programmes like that are very much part of the media strategy. It did, though, involve the loss of a training day and a round trip from her base in Ipswich to the BBC's MediaCityUK in Salford, so we wanted to make sure that every part of her day was maximised.

As well as filming Question of Sport, we also set up an interview for Elena with BBC Radio 5Live and a video chat with BBC Sport online with whom she has a regular column. In a gap between appointments she talked to the widely read Sporting Life website, and we filmed two short informal Christmas messages, one for her sponsor and another for her social media channels. We also made sure that photos of her at MediaCityUK appeared on her Facebook Page and via Twitter. In two hours Elena reached millions of people across multiple media platforms, polished her media skills even further and got several key messages across. Her sponsors appreciate that kind of exposure too.

Elena wants us to be proactive about raising her profile. Other athletes, on the other hand, might already have a very high profile and might need help managing a high volume of media coverage. This can often be the case if they have recently achieved a big result and suddenly find themselves inundated with requests. Should they yes to everyone; say no to everyone or, worse of all, hide themselves away in panic. Too much media and they become exhausted and over-exposed but hiding away might mean huge commercial opportunities pass them by because they have failed to make the most of the spotlight.


Agents, family members, partners, friends might all try to offer advice but while they probably have the athlete's best interest at heart, they are unlikely to have the specialised experience or expertise to manage media effectively. That's where publicists like us come in. Faye and I have worked in sports media for most of our working lives and I was a sports journalist and broadcaster for fifteen years, so we know what we're doing.

Step one is to talk to the athlete and discuss with them how much time they have and what they feel comfortable with. We might also talk to the agents about what the sponsorship goals are. From this we form a strategy and, once that's in place, we advise on what requests to say yes or not to based on time available and whether it makes strategic sense for time to be spent on this or that media opportunity.

Setting goals and making decisions based on those goals is part of an athlete's professional life. It should be part of their publicist's way of doing business too.